The electronic booking facilities on the new national tourism portal www.visitmalta.com that were missing at the time of its launch last January are now fully functional, i-Tech has learned. Furthermore, in the meantime, versions of the portal in French, Italian and German have also been developed.
i-Tech had reported how the new portal, which has the important task of facilitating online booking by tourists of accommodation, flights and other facilities in the Maltese islands, had been launched with most of the online booking components still not operational.
At the time, the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Associations welcomed the launch and explained the haste by saying that timeliness was an important factor in view of the coming season. On the other hand, the owners of the private tourism booking engine www.choosemalta.com took action in court, insisting the portal's creator, the Malta Tourism Authority (MTA), cannot be a regulator and a market player at the same time.
The MTA stood its ground and continued the development of the project in conjunction with Alert Communications, a private multimedia development company.
"The portal is providing every possible means through which persons interested in visiting Malta can book local accommodation and services online through an easy-to-use layout," explained Michael Piscopo, director of Visitmalta, the company in charge of the portal under the responsibility of MTA.
"The concept of a 'one-stop-shop' facility as provided within Visitmalta provides the right channel through which the prospective visitor to Malta can integrate information with user-friendly booking."
The online flight booking component is now functional and provides useful information and booking facilities for anyone wishing to book a flight to Malta.
Currently there are 97 accommodation establishments featured in the directory of the portal, of which 58 have signed the agreement to be present also on the booking engine. Half of these have already uploaded their rates and are accepting online bookings, while the rest are in the process of doing so in the coming weeks. When the portal was launched in January only two hotels were available in the online booking engine.
The car-hire booking module will be launched by the end of March, following useful discussions with the local Rent-A-Car Association (RACA). The module will enable prospective visitors to hire motor vehicles directly from the companies listed within this section.
Similarly, following discussions with the Federated Association of Travel and Tourism Agents (FATTA), it was agreed that the portal will shortly be offering an enhanced searchable directory of "local specialists" featuring their full contact details as well as links to their respective websites.
Despite the early shortcomings in interactivity elements of the new portal, it has scored very positive numbers in terms of viewership.
Figures shown to i-Tech reveal that since the portal's launch on January 19, around 350,000 visitors have made use of it with an average of 12,336 daily visitors. More than 97 per cent of all online visits were from countries outside Malta. The most popular function of the portal has consistently been the interactive map of the Maltese islands, while brochures about Malta, local archaeology, local travel specialists and walking tours have proven to be the most popular downloads.
These figures are constantly analysed to fine tune the users' experience and make the most of the portal capabilities.
"The portal has been designed to serve as a very valuable tool for the MTA to analyse and understand the online visitor's expectations when planning a holiday in Malta. It will allow the MTA to understand better the behaviours, attitudes and preferences of this visitor as they relate to the researching, planning and buying of travel related goods and services with respect to Malta," according to Hadrian Sammut of the advisory firm KPMG.
Planned developments of visitmalta.com for the coming months include an enhanced events calendar, the expansion of the business travel section comprising the important conference and incentive sector, and a stronger presence for Gozo.
"We are also considering the introduction of other language versions as well as additional functionalities to make the browsing experience even more interesting and rewarding for our visitors. Our efforts are aimed towards achieving a consistent and loyal customer base to the general benefit of local tourism stakeholders," added Mr Piscopo.
Attempts to promote the Maltese islands on internet are also being made through other projects. One of them is a new website aimed at increasing awareness of the rich Maltese historical and cultural heritage. This is available at www.medinaproject.net/malta.
Malta together with another 13 partner countries from Europe and the Mediterranean have teamed up in the MEDINA (MEDiterranean by INternet Access) project, co-funded by the European Union, to promote the Mediterranean culture. The Maltese participation of the project was trusted to the Ministry for Tourism and Culture.
The main objective of the project is to exploit the use of multimedia and the internet to highlight the cultures in the Mediterranean basin and to promote the creation of a Mediterranean cultural identity.
This has been achieved mainly through the design and development of a federation of national websites focusing on culture, which are then integrated into the MEDINA portal. The material included on the national websites has been grouped into five cultural axes which are handicrafts, performing arts, food and gastronomy, material heritage and folk traditions.
Cultural tourists can use the portal to design their own itinerary, learn about the culture of potential destinations and obtain first hand information about tourist services.
Tourism operators can use the portal to obtain ideas for new itineraries, update the information in their brochures and benefit from increased tourism demand.
The portal will also give governments increased promotion to their national cultural heritage increased tourist flow in the Mediterranean region and an enriching experience for visiting tourists.
The full MEDINA portal with information on all partner Mediterranean countries is available at www.medinaproject.net
i-Tech had reported how the new portal, which has the important task of facilitating online booking by tourists of accommodation, flights and other facilities in the Maltese islands, had been launched with most of the online booking components still not operational.
At the time, the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Associations welcomed the launch and explained the haste by saying that timeliness was an important factor in view of the coming season. On the other hand, the owners of the private tourism booking engine www.choosemalta.com took action in court, insisting the portal's creator, the Malta Tourism Authority (MTA), cannot be a regulator and a market player at the same time.
The MTA stood its ground and continued the development of the project in conjunction with Alert Communications, a private multimedia development company.
"The portal is providing every possible means through which persons interested in visiting Malta can book local accommodation and services online through an easy-to-use layout," explained Michael Piscopo, director of Visitmalta, the company in charge of the portal under the responsibility of MTA.
"The concept of a 'one-stop-shop' facility as provided within Visitmalta provides the right channel through which the prospective visitor to Malta can integrate information with user-friendly booking."
The online flight booking component is now functional and provides useful information and booking facilities for anyone wishing to book a flight to Malta.
Currently there are 97 accommodation establishments featured in the directory of the portal, of which 58 have signed the agreement to be present also on the booking engine. Half of these have already uploaded their rates and are accepting online bookings, while the rest are in the process of doing so in the coming weeks. When the portal was launched in January only two hotels were available in the online booking engine.
The car-hire booking module will be launched by the end of March, following useful discussions with the local Rent-A-Car Association (RACA). The module will enable prospective visitors to hire motor vehicles directly from the companies listed within this section.
Similarly, following discussions with the Federated Association of Travel and Tourism Agents (FATTA), it was agreed that the portal will shortly be offering an enhanced searchable directory of "local specialists" featuring their full contact details as well as links to their respective websites.
Despite the early shortcomings in interactivity elements of the new portal, it has scored very positive numbers in terms of viewership.
Figures shown to i-Tech reveal that since the portal's launch on January 19, around 350,000 visitors have made use of it with an average of 12,336 daily visitors. More than 97 per cent of all online visits were from countries outside Malta. The most popular function of the portal has consistently been the interactive map of the Maltese islands, while brochures about Malta, local archaeology, local travel specialists and walking tours have proven to be the most popular downloads.
These figures are constantly analysed to fine tune the users' experience and make the most of the portal capabilities.
"The portal has been designed to serve as a very valuable tool for the MTA to analyse and understand the online visitor's expectations when planning a holiday in Malta. It will allow the MTA to understand better the behaviours, attitudes and preferences of this visitor as they relate to the researching, planning and buying of travel related goods and services with respect to Malta," according to Hadrian Sammut of the advisory firm KPMG.
Planned developments of visitmalta.com for the coming months include an enhanced events calendar, the expansion of the business travel section comprising the important conference and incentive sector, and a stronger presence for Gozo.
"We are also considering the introduction of other language versions as well as additional functionalities to make the browsing experience even more interesting and rewarding for our visitors. Our efforts are aimed towards achieving a consistent and loyal customer base to the general benefit of local tourism stakeholders," added Mr Piscopo.
Attempts to promote the Maltese islands on internet are also being made through other projects. One of them is a new website aimed at increasing awareness of the rich Maltese historical and cultural heritage. This is available at www.medinaproject.net/malta.
Malta together with another 13 partner countries from Europe and the Mediterranean have teamed up in the MEDINA (MEDiterranean by INternet Access) project, co-funded by the European Union, to promote the Mediterranean culture. The Maltese participation of the project was trusted to the Ministry for Tourism and Culture.
The main objective of the project is to exploit the use of multimedia and the internet to highlight the cultures in the Mediterranean basin and to promote the creation of a Mediterranean cultural identity.
This has been achieved mainly through the design and development of a federation of national websites focusing on culture, which are then integrated into the MEDINA portal. The material included on the national websites has been grouped into five cultural axes which are handicrafts, performing arts, food and gastronomy, material heritage and folk traditions.
Cultural tourists can use the portal to design their own itinerary, learn about the culture of potential destinations and obtain first hand information about tourist services.
Tourism operators can use the portal to obtain ideas for new itineraries, update the information in their brochures and benefit from increased tourism demand.
The portal will also give governments increased promotion to their national cultural heritage increased tourist flow in the Mediterranean region and an enriching experience for visiting tourists.
The full MEDINA portal with information on all partner Mediterranean countries is available at www.medinaproject.net