The Views On Tourism Project celebrate 3 year anniversary, 300.000 blog visitors and 750 group members. Uniting the right people generates the resources, knowledge and visions to encourage a positive local tourism development in Bangladesh and South Asia.

This project started in 2008 as a Danish expat volunteer initiative in Bangladesh to support the emerging sustainable awareness. The blog provides knowledge and inspiration to the Bangladeshi tourism sector, nearby South Asian countries, developing countries or destinations facing similar challenges. The network group makes an online communication platform for the sustainable tourism stakeholders related to Bangladesh and South Asia.

I welcome you to use the Views On Tourism Project to increase knowledge, share best practice, spread information, make comments, announce events, start discussions, network and cooperate.

Furthermore I encourage you to please support a fantastic project, which is fighting poverty through positive tourism development.
Crowdsourced Travel Bangladesh is a community-powered collective that provides information, marketing and travel media services to ‘unusual’ destinations often overlooked by the world travel community.
Your donation will make a difference.

I wish you a happy and sustainable new year in 2012.

Yours faithfully Majbritt Thomsen, initiator the Views On Tourism Project

For further information please follow these links:
Views On Tourism – Knowledge and Inspiration Blog.
Views On Tourism – Network and Discussion Group.
Crowdsourced Travel Bangladesh – Campaign in Progress.

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Nominations can be submitted until December 31, 2011. Follow this link to fill the form and suggest the city that should be one of the New7Wonders Cities.

The nominations will be announced on January 7, 2012 and these participants will then be put to popular vote to choose the New7Wonders Cities.

This article is quoted from New7Wonders , read the original article here posted on the 13th of November 2011.

The article is uploaded by Majbritt Thomsen, administrator on ‘Views On Tourism’. Please join the online Views On Tourism network and discussion group in order to achieve personal goals as well as encourage a sustainable tourism development in Bangladesh and South Asia. Read more about this group and how to become a member here.

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Hi everyone,

I hope you are all well where ever you may be and your work/personal projects are going well.

I wanted to let you know that I’m finally back in Bangladesh for the next six weeks. I’ve been in touch with all of you at various points regarding the update of the Bradt guide, but to be honest I haven’t managed to find enough personal time to keep everything and everyone coordinated. My sincere apologies for talking big and not following through.

The good news: I’m now back again giving Bangladesh my full and almost undivided attention. We’ve got a deadline to make (Jan 15), and a lot of work to do. And I cannot do it alone.

After many years of pondering the poverty problem, I’ve concluded that tourism is one of the best vehicles for developing new economic opportunities for Bangladesh. Tourism could provide massive economic opportunities for this country and I will no longer wait for the government or the tourism industry to reach the foreign audience. I’m taking matters into my own hands – and I am asking others to help me achieve this by volunteering (that’s you) or by seeding this business via the social business crowdfunding platform Start Some Good . Here is how to donate to Crowdsourced Travel .

Using social media and my video camera, I’m going to start shouting from the rice paddies that Bangladesh is now open to adventurous, socially-aware travellers. Bangladeshi people deserve to participate in tourism, a significant vehicle of economic empowerment, and I’ve now devoted several years of my life to sharing this important story with the world.

The purpose of my trip back is to achieve the following:
1. Consolidate a team of volunteers and tour operators who can help update the Bradt guide for a 15 Jan deadline and source new photographs for the guide.
2. Launch a crowdfunding campaign that will help start Crowdsourced Travel, a new social tourism venture. Begin creating its first products.
3. Tell the story of the country’s best social tourism operators and their products.

How can you help me?
1. Join Us: Stay informed by ‘liking’ our Facebook page or signing up on the newsletter .
2. Write: Publish your travel intelligence to the Wikitravel guide to Bangladesh or on Tripadvisor , sites that we plan to use as the info repositories for the travel community instead. If you have an iPhone or an Android phone you can publish directly to Wikitravel using the iTravelFree app. Those who take up larger roles in the project might get a free tour with an operator for research purposes!
3. Photograph: We need your best travel photography for the Bradt guide and for “Positive Light,” a new coffee table photography book I will publish if venture funding is successful. More news coming on this soon. Launch and exhibition event happening 27 October at the BAGHA club in Dhaka.
4. Spread the word: Forward this message!! Let your friends and contacts know that you are thinking of contributing to Bangladesh: The Bradt Travel Guide and Crowdsourced Travel, and that we are raising money to start a social tourism business. They can join us at Facebook or sign up for the newsletter at the Crowdsourced Travel website. We will be launching the crowdfunding campaign next week.
5. Come to the launch event: On 27 October, I am holding a photo exhibition at the BAGHA Club in Dhaka to launch this event, and if you can join us in celebrating the best of Bangladesh I would love to meet you or see you again.

Thank you for expressing your interest in this project. I’d be honoured if you continue to support this work in any way you can. You can reach me in Bangladesh at 01721 720 530.

Best regards,
-Mikey Leung, Author
Bangladesh: The Bradt Travel Guide
mikey@crowdsourced.travel
Bangladesh Traveller
Crowdsourced Travel

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The survey unveiled some fascinating trends. Interestingly, the features that many e-business professionals are currently using do not align with those that they believe to be most effective. For example, 64% of respondents believe that “hotel tours (combinations of guided spin, zoom imagery, videos or animation)” are very effective yet only 41% have deployed this tactic.

Highlights from the survey include the most popular planned and deployed features and their effectiveness across two categories: rich media/merchandising and social media.

At a glance, the top five most effective rich media merchandising and social media tactics include:

User ratings and rankings: 67%
Hotel tours (combinations guided spin, zoom imagery, videos or animation): 66%
User comments and reviews: 64%
Videos for merchandising, advertising and demonstration: 60%
360 degree spins/panoramas: 49%

This analysis of e-business professionals’ merchandising tactics offers valuable insights for online hotel merchandising and validates current online trends. Importantly, the results, across the board indicate that e-business professionals with rich media in their online merchandising strategies are finding great success. Download the full report for more details.

About VFM Leonardo | VFM Leonardo is a technology leader in online visual content management and syndication for the hotel industry. VFM Leonardo’s VScape® and VBrochure™ products leverage the syndication capabilities of the VNetwork™, the most universally accepted and largest online visual content syndication network for the global travel industry. VFM Leonardo offers the most effective digital asset management and online merchandising systems available today with over 1,000,000 visual images (photos, virtual tours and videos) for 90,000 hotels worldwide currently in distribution across the VNetwork. All four global distribution systems (GDSs) – Amadeus, Galileo, Sabre, Worldspan – as well as Pegasus source hotel visual content through VScape. Tens of thousands of travel-related channels including online travel agencies, travel research and supplier web sites, search portals; Travelocity, Orbitz, Priceline, TripAdvisor, Yahoo! Travel, Kayak, Google and more also source visual content through VScape. For more information about VFM Leonardo, visit www.vfmleonardo.com. Follow us on Twitter at @VFMLeonardo.

CONTACT
Julie Vieth
Communications Specialist
Phone: 416.263.5446
Email: julie.vieth@vfmleonardo.com

ORGANIZATION
VFM Leonardo Inc.
www.vfmleonardo.com
111 Peter Street | 5th Floor
Toronto, ON, M5V 2H1
Canada
Tollfree: 1.877.593.6634
Phone: 416-593-6634
Fax: 416-593-7572
Email: info@vfmleonardo.com

This article is quoted from the newsletter TourismROI Alert from Tourism ROI. The article was originally published on 2010-08.12.

This article is uploaded by Majbritt Thomsen, administrator on ‘Views On Tourism’.

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To download the presentation just following the green link Prospect of Sustainable Tourism in Bangladesh and please share it with relevant people in the Bangladeshi tourism sector.

It was with much joy, that I was a guest speaker on the 21th June 2010.
My topic was ‘Prospect of Sustainable Tourism in Bangladesh’ and the event was co-hosted by United International University (UIU) and Junior Chamber International (JCI – ICIB is the Bangladeshi wing). The seminar was professional arranged and the audience quite big with a good mix of eager UIU students, JCIB members, key tourism stakeholders and Views On Tourism network members. As I am leaving Bangladesh just a few days after this presentation, it was a perfect farewell to the future and present Bangladeshi tourism stakeholders.

I started the Views On Tourism Project in 2008 to encourage a sustainable tourism movement in Bangladesh through knowledge and network. I am convinced that each individual can make an impact in the society through his/her actions and that the local people with visions and resources have an obligation to lead a positive development. Reading about JCI visions – I felt very comfortable in the company of the JCIB members. According the international website JCI is a membership-based nonprofit organization of 200,000 young people ages 18 to 40 in 5,000 communities and more than 100 countries around the world.

Each JCI Member shares the belief that in order to create lasting positive change, we must improve ourselves and the world around us. They seek targeted solutions to the unique problems in our communities to build a better world, creating global impact.
Visit the JCI website if you want to know more.

The online Views On Tourism Project awareness include more than 55.000 blog readers and reached 324 network members so far. This proves to me that sustainable tourism has a future – also in Bangladesh. The Views On Tourism Project has furthermore showed its potential to become an online communication platform for a sustainable tourism movement in Bangladesh and South Asia. To further strengthen this sustainable tourism movement though, will require increased local commitment and long-term sustainable initiatives. But there is no doubt in my heart that if the tourism stakeholders in Bangladeshi and South Asia unite they have the resources, knowledge and visions to succeed. I will continue to manage the basic Views On Tourism services from Denmark and also share a network comment and a blog article once in a while. I hope to experience the growth of an active Bangladeshi grass-root tourism movement through the free of cost Views On Tourism services.

If you are not a Views On Tourism group member, I encourage you to read the group introduction and consider joining this online sustainable tourism network. Go to The Views On Tourism network group introduction .
The Views On Tourism knowledge and inspiration blog is available at www.viewsontourism.info

Is indeed interesting times for Bangladeshi tourism ……..

This article is uploaded by Majbritt Thomsen, administrator on ‘Views On Tourism’

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Daily Star: Shahed Mustafa
Bangladesh has got its own 64 web portals for each of its 64 districts. The prime minister inaugurated the web portals on January 6. These web portals contain almost all the information a citizen requires.

These are unique in design and maintained by the local authorities. The addresses of the portals are easy to find. Each of the district web portals follows the same address path which is: dc(district_name).gov.bd.

The web portals contain information as district at a glance, geographical profile, industries & commerce, local newspapers, sports & recreation, culture & languages, transportation facilities, famous persons of the districts, public representatives, upazila & union information etc.

People can get an overall idea and information about their districts. Besides, information of the deputy commissioner’s office, local government, zila parisad, upazila parisad, union parisad, poursava information is presented in the portals.
People can get current information about their districts in News & Advertisement section. Moreover, emergency telephone numbers, address of the important websites are also given.

Information about four important sectors as Education, Health, Agriculture, Tourism & Heritage of the districts are given in the portals. In the health section the visitors will get the telephone numbers of doctors, hospitals, clinics and health assistants.
In the agriculture section, the information of the fertilizer dealers and block supervisors are given. In the Tourism and Heritage section, information of the district hotels and accommodation facilities, tourist places, district heritage and maps of the districts are available.

For the visitors who want to comment or express their views, a comment book and an opinion & advice section are placed. A Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) section is also there for those who want to get instant answers from the service providers.
These 64 web portals are constructed in Bangla for the time being and steps to make their English version is going on.

These portals are constructed under the ‘Access to Information (A2I)’ programme with the assistance of the UNDP. The step of building 64 web portals by the government will help people to get information at their doorsteps.

This article is quoted from The Daily Star, Bangladesh . The article was originally published on 2010-02.12
This article is uploaded by Majbritt Thomsen, administrator on ‘Views On Tourism’.

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Our Rationale
E-Tourism Africa was created from many years of experience of working in online consultation with both public and private sector Tourism bodies in Africa. While there is among some of the leading African tourism economies a growing awareness of the need to utilize ICT in tourism marketing, and to some extent sales, investment, development, generally progress has been very limited. The global domination of online sales has created over US$74 Billion in annual sales. Data clearly shows that the crossover point between rising online sales and descending offline sales is upon us, as Europe and Asia follow the trends that have revolutionized the US Travel trade. A recent poll of UK travellers shows a remarkable 89% preference for online reservations .

Yet Africa is excluded almost entirely from this business. A survey of any of the continents leading tourism economies shows that actual online conversion of sales, either directly of via intermediaries is virtually non-existent. This is a clear example of Larry Irving’s “Digital Divide” theory, by which technology widens the poverty gap between technologically able business communities in the developed world and a new generation of “information have-nots” in the developing world. In most African countries, e-commerce is illegal, and banks cannot (and in some cases are not willing to) accept online payments. This is a major block to the basic ability to carry out ICT sales- and must be overcome.

While some tourism economies have invested in large scale, information rich, destination sites (particularly South Africa and Kenya) which have achieved high search rankings and visibility, very little has been done to move them beyond information only status. There has been little investment in targeted contextual marketing, and only limited attempts to develop public- private sector partnerships for conversion of traffic to sales through portals. This is matched at a private sector level by a lack of investment in inventory management, online reservations systems or CRM technology, or even in use of dynamic. This also presents a threat of developing inequitable sales models, by which inventory in form of package sales are commoditized and sold on by foreign based operators.

Social Networking, blogging and consumer generated media trends that have become vital tools in the promotion of travel generate a great deal of discussion and media on Africa, but without proper contextual advertising programmes or conversion models this does little to generate any direct business.

Yet there are relatively simple ways to reverse these trends. Online tourism has become a booming business, and African tourism produced 36 Million arrivals and $32 Billion in receipts in 2006 . The digital divide in Africa represents a vast potential for commerce, investment and infrastructural development. For travel intermediaries, technology firms and marketing media, this is a rich new frontier. But this needs to be regulated, sustainable and equitable, to prevent the predominance (through lack of educated decision making processes and strategic planning) of inappropriate or exploitative business models. Equally, there is a need for a level online playing field to be sure that SMEs and community based and eco tourism ventures are not left behind and find solutions for representation in portals and regional partnerships, and e-commerce solutions to allow equitable distribution.

There is a clear need for extensive public-private sector partnerships and shared resources and initiatives. Several of these are already in place, such as Microsoft’s programme to provide a Self Provisioning Portal for tourism SME’s in Africa- giving them access to the web for the first time. In South Africa now there are plans to create a united and universally accessible payment and booking gateway for Africa to be used for the 2010 African World Cup.

By bringing together key players to be educated, informed and inspired at E-Tourism specific conferences, and including international intermediaries, technology and service providers, we can create a shift in local business cultures and practices, encourage strategic investment and planning and generate business.

Our Objectives
• To educate and inform the public and private tourism sectors in African countries and to raise awareness of the importance of ICT in adapting to the rapidly changing travel distribution channels in order to avoid the creation of a digital divide between Africa and the global travel trade.
• To provide working models of sustainable e-tourism business solutions in action, and provide the local trade with resources to initiate both e-marketing and e-business.
• To locally analyse the status of E-business at a public and private sector level, and identify key issues and challenges to development, and to incorporate these into conference and workshop agendas.
• To identify, explain and demonstrate new business and marketing technologies in a practical and simple manner that will allow the local DMOs and trade to make informed destinations about their own strategies.
• To create opportunities for exposure and networking opportunities with international online intermediaries and technology providers.
• To ensure equitable involvement of SMEs and community and eco-tourism projects in an e-tourist environment.
• To provide a platform for new initiatives, development and assistance programmes for the sector to be fully integrated into local tourism economies.
• To provide direct support and training for integration of e-tourism solutions at both a public and private sector levels, combining international and local expertise.
• To create increased opportunity for local, national, regional and Pan-African initiatives to cooperate and compete in an equitable environment.
• To provide an ongoing source for resources, discussions and further education for African Tourism stakeholders.

This information is quoted from E-Tourism Africa. The article is uploaded by Majbritt Thomsen, administrator on ‘Views On Tourism’.

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A collaborative process involving more than 1000 experts and organizations, the criteria list is general enough to apply to any destination around the world yet so specific that small tourism businesses would have a hard time qualifying as a sustainable tourism business under the criteria.

Sustainable tourism is an evolving concept – constantly adapting to new challenges, new issues and new impacts of tourism on the environment, the economy and on communities. No business is 100% sustainable and there is always room for improvement. Kick- starting the GSTC initiative is the increased occurrence of greenwashing and the misuse of the terminology – such as sustainable tourism, ecotourism, and responsible tourism – which dilute the concept and question the credibility of legitimate sustainable tourism businesses. But are accreditation, certification and criteria lists the appropriate response?

The best way to be a sustainable tourism business is to take responsibility for your business’ sustainability. The GSTC serves very easily as a wish list of high level initiatives your business can undertake to become more sustainable. Online resources such as TOES’ Responsible Suppliers Guide , TIAC’s Green Your Business: Toolkit for Tourism Operators and the Icarus Foundation’s Green Festivals and Events Guide are also useful tools for identifying suppliers, practices and other initiatives that would increase your business’ sustainability. Transparency, however, is the key to communicating your sustainable practices to your customers. And there are three easy ways to be transparent and take responsibility for your sustainability – draft a policy; be upfront about challenges and encourage feedback.

Draft a Responsible Tourism Policy
What is your business taking responsibility for doing? Make a list of all the initiatives you have started and communicate that document to the community and your customers. Post it on your website, email it with booking confirmations, and add it to your brochures.

Be upfront about challenges
Don’t be afraid to identify barriers, challenges or areas of improvement and communicate them to your customers. You never know – one of your customers may have a suggestion for solving the challenge.

Encourage feedback from the public
Provide an outlet and opportunity for your customers and your community to provide feedback about your practices – good and bad. Post trip emails, surveys, or even casual conversations let you know how you are doing and allows the public to ‘call you out’ if you are not living up to the practices listed in your policy. In the end, only you can control your business’ sustainability. While global efforts to define sustainable tourism and eliminate greenwashing continue, those efforts are best used as a resource tool or wish list of initiatives to implement rather than as a defining list of criteria.

Laura McGowan is the Director of the International Centre for Responsible Tourism Canada (ICRT). This article was first published in The Ontario Ecotourism Society’s (TOES) Winter 2010 Quarterly newsletter, Ecotourism Ontario. To view back issues of the newsletter, and learn more about TOES, please visit their website.

This article is quoted from the Responsible Travel Report The Sustainable Tourism e-Newsletter Vol. 8 No. 1, January 2010 published by STI.

This article is uploaded by Majbritt Thomsen, administrator on ‘Views On Tourism’.

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This Views On Tourism presentation focus on the sustainable tourism potential in Bangladesh and the role of a tourism policy. Topics included in the presentation are: Introduction, National tourism status, Tourism development (General obstacles, Destination impact, Sustainable tourism and Bangladeshi tourism potential), How to become sustainable (New tourism management and Policy instruments and role) and Conclusion.

Please download this presentation by following this link Sustainable tourism in Bangladesh – development potential and the role of a tourism policy and share it with relevant people in the Bangladeshi tourism sector.

The main goal of the Views On Tourism Project is to join a national sustainable tourism movement by building capacity through knowledge and cooperation. Bangladesh can achieve great things if hands and brains are joined, including developing a sustainable tourism sector which will benefit the entire society. The main existing services of The Views On Tourism Project are this web-page and the free to join online network group also named ‘Views On Tourism’.

The Views On Tourism Project plan to host several seminars in the future and the Views On Tourism groupmembers will always receive direct notification on these events. Follow this link to read about the Views On Tourism network group Views On Tourism – Bangladeshi network and discussion and become a member here.

Yours faithfully Majbritt Thomsen
Public LinkedIn profile
E-mail: info@viewsontourism.info

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This article will go through the following themes related to the construction and content of a web-page: Domain, Host, Design, Content and Management.

Domain
A domain can be bought online on sites like:
Domain
Buy domains
Register

Prices do not vary a lot among suppliers, but the prices depend largely on the added services and the popularity of last letters of the future web-address (e.g. .com is more expensive than .info).
To ensure that readers can find your business, it is recommendable to buy several domains to guide readers to the main web-page. As an example the main web-page of the Views On Tourism project is www.viewontourism.info, but both domains ending on .com and .net has been bought to increase traffic to the main site.

Host
In order to publish a website online you need a Web host. The Web host stores all the pages of the website and makes them available to computers connected to the Internet.

If you want to publish your own website, you’ll need to sign up for a “Web hosting service.” Finding a good Web host shouldn’t be too hard, since there are thousands available. Just make sure the Web host you choose offers good technical support and ensure little or no downtime. You’ll usually have to pay a monthly fee that varies depending on how much disk space and bandwidth your site will use. So it’s a good idea to estimate how big your site will be and how much traffic you expect before signing up for a Web hosting service.

Design
A successful web-page must have a nice and functional design as well as always updated information. Few readers will visit if the webpage is filled with irrelevant ADs or if the content is difficult to find, slow to download or out-of-date.
The web-design should furthermore include consideration on the data load of the web-page, as download speed in many developing countries, like Bangladesh, is limited. Even though web-page AD’s is a possible income generator AD’s should be held at a minimum to communicate the core company information clearly.

Content
Readers is searching for information when visiting your web-page, therefore you need to put a lot of effort in writing and planning the web-page content. Make a detailed plan of content and categories even before you start planning the layout.
To get some inspiration have a look at the web-pages of similar players in your field – both national and international players. This is not to copy their text, but to get some inspiration on what kind of information and categories to include.

Let me make an example for a national tourism operator association. To get content inspiration I would visit the following sites of international association in the tourism sector:

The Trade Association for European Tourism (ETOA)
Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO)
Pacific Travel Association (PATA)
European Travel Agents & Tour Operators Association (ECTAA)

Below is a list of the categories mentioned in these sites, which is valuable content inspiration for your own web-page.

About
Member List
Premier Partners
News, research and Publications
Facts and figures
Executive Committee
Media
Membership
View Calendar/ events
Policy Areas
Scheme for market development assistance
Important Links
Notifications
Frequent Asked Questions
Feedback
Contact
Email us
Member’s area (requires ID and Password)

Management
The content writing should always be planed and done by people who know their subject – the company owners and staff. The level of ongoing web-page management (new updates) depends largely on the nature of content. If the web-page for example include a calendar function a high level of updates is required.

Except for the content writing, web-programmers and designers can be hired to do the design, management and updating. Out sorting all of these services can end up in pricy solution, especially if you are not realistic about the exact web-page requirements and needs. Furthermore an out sorting solution requires a high level of communication to obtain constant up-date.
Alternative solution of doing all or some of this work by own employees should be investigated; especially for the ongoing web-page management it will probably be cheaper to hire a in-house employee.

Another less pricy and practical solution, which will give your compagny more control of management and design, is by using a content management system (CMS). A content management system for a web site enables non-geeky editors, writers or administrators to add, edit, and delete content on the web site without knowing HTML – the programming language that is used to make web sites. The basic idea is: A template for the web site is created and then some administration tool is used to make words and images appear in that template.

My own blog www.viewsontourism.info is one example of the content management system ‘Word Press’. As I am NOT an IT genius I got some initial help to get started on a template, but after this I have filled in all of my own text. I have full control of the update management and I often make small adjustments on a daily basis.

I do not know all the CMS providers, but if interested do a Google search or have a look at this article on Wolfram.org, which recommend 10 CMS providers as free and easy to use.

This article is written by Majbritt Thomsen, administrator on ‘Views On Tourism’

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