Tourists have changed the way they behave when it comes to organising their travel. They now seek inspiration from the experiences of other travellers, they want to be better informed, they consult opinions and only then do they book a holiday, during the course of which they share their experience with other users via the social networks.
According to data provided by EGATUR, 60% of all inbound tourists who visited Spain in 2012 consult the information on the Internet while organising their visit to Spain, 59% booked services in advance and 56% paid over the Internet.
These figures clearly demonstrate the behaviour of digital tourists and are one of the reasons for producing a new version of the official website for tourism in Spain, the purpose of which is to offer a response to all these new requirements and become an essential tool for helping tourists organise their travel arrangements at every stage of the process.
The new version of spain.info falls in line with the targets set by the Strategic Marketing Plan implemented by Turespaña to enhance the promotion of tourism products that diversify the Spanish tourism offer, which ranges from the traditional sunshine and sand holiday to culture, nature, gastronomy, sport, etc. It will also help to de-seasonalise the offer.
The objective for the new version of spain.info is two-fold. Firstly, it aims to improve tourism experiences by offering more inspiration, being more social, more interactive, simpler and more intuitive to browse, where the design and increased visual content encourages users to explore the tourist attractions to be found in Spain.
Secondly, and for the first time, tourists will be able to book everything they need for their trip to Spain; from transport to accommodation and including the services they wish to enjoy at the destination, such as show tickets, museum tickets, etc. Tourists will now be able to complete their entire travel booking process without leaving spain.info.
CommercialisationThis new version of the website aims to offer a new sales channel to the entire private sector, with any final purchase being made via the website of the service provider in question.
Tourists will be able to book their flights, train journeys and accommodation from spain.info, where they will find a price comparison tool for each product - the chosen option as it is considered the most transparent and provides space for the largest number of tourist accommodation establishments (approximately 20,000).
The user enters their search criteria and receives a result that might include online travel agents, hotel chain websites or websites of individual hotels via their respective booking engines. Spain.info thus offers space to all those businesses that commercialise their accommodation offer online.
As regards the flight comparison tool, it should be noted that it will display results from more than 800 airlines offering flight combinations with a destination in Spain and available online through more than 400 channels that include travel agents, traditional airlines and low-cost.
Over the coming months, spain.info will begin to incorporate the commercialisation of complementary offers (museum and show tickets, tourist bus and tourism cards, and restaurant bookings). It is also expected that tourism experiences will begin to be commercialised before the end of the year, for which collaboration will come from those travel agencies with such offers available online.
Spain.info is available in eighteen languages and has 25 different customised local versions for the traditional emitting markets and the emerging markets: Brazil, Russia, India and China.
New featuresThe tourist becomes the key figure at the centre of the website experience and a section based on market segmentation has been created to achieve this. Users can select their profile (young people, families, senior citizens, LGBT) and the reason for their travel to Spain (nature, sport, beach, etc.). Based on these choices, the website will offer a variety of travel options in Spain with a focus on their preferences.
Another new feature of the website is the geography-based search tool. Using the section entitled "Where to go?" tourists are given the option to locate information on destinations or tourist attractions via a map.
Sharing experiencesThe social networks are also present throughout the website, thus enabling users to share their Spanish travel experience, publish comments or upload photos and videos of their stay in Spain. This will serve as a source of inspiration for other travellers. This is possible via the section entitled "Share Your Experience".
It is a dynamic website that will be constantly evolving to suit the needs of tourists and adapt to suggestions from the sector.
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