Tridion's Erik Aeyelts Averink executive vice president marketing and corporate development looks into how to make sure website does the hard work for companies: (7/20/2006)

The most popular destination for travellers continues to be the Internet. Every company in the industry knows that travel and tourism companies rely heavily on the Web: from the smallest B&B to the biggest airline, virtually everyone has an online presence.

The evolution in consumers use of the Internet for planning and purchasing travel has had a dramatic impact on the industries online landscape. Perhaps more than any other sector, we have seen consumers embrace the web for high level purchases such as flights, hotel bookings and package holidays. Just a few years ago, selecting a seat online wasn't an option: now it's ubiquitous on nearly all websites that sell plane tickets. This self-service concept on the net has proved invaluable to the industry, allowing cost cuttings and continuous innovation within the market.

While websites have become a shop front where we can lay out products, communicate with customers and provide booking facilities, the reliance on the Web has also brought about new challenges.

At a time when we are bombarded with new concepts and trends, such as web 2.0 (the user-driven Internet with more features and functionality) it is perhaps pertinent to look at challenges and the future One of the most significant challenges is how to efficiently update multiple sites. The Internet was touted as a tool that would cut costs and reduce the need for high street shops, an army of sales people and glossy brochures. However, the unavoidable requirement within the travel industry for continual updates regarding prices, facilities, deals, travel dates and timings delivered on multiple websites in numerous languages can seem like an unconquerable mountain.

This is a particular issue for the tourism industry: websites can rapidly become a sprawling mess in their attempt to accommodate multiple hotel sites, travel facilities, affiliates and multi-language web pages. A recent survey revealed that the average number of external, customer-facing Web sites that companies maintain has doubled to 34 since 2001. With every site requiring up to date details, how do companies replicate the information quickly and accurately across each site?

This dilemma faced one of our customers, Orient Express, owner and manager of 41 leisure properties in 17 countries including 30 hotels across five continents and, of course, the legendary Venice Simplon Orient Express. Naturally, clients and potential customers expected to log on to Orient Express website and immediately find the latest information about every aspect of the company's services.

However, as e-Commerce director, Brian Tickle, explained to me, this was not quite the case. Orient Express is a decentralised business and each of the 30 plus hotels and trains previously had its own site. If the sites required any alteration, head office had to fax details to a web agency. This agency then had to edit thousands of web pages for 30 different Internet sites, in multiple languages. Unsurprisingly, this method was unreliable, expensive and painfully slow.

Tickle knew he had to take the situation in hand: Orient Express, a globally recognised brand, was not making the most of its online presence and was failing to meet customer expectations. Tickle needed a solution that would enable Orient Express to communicate up to date information to customers without signing up to a gruelling maintenance regime and unrealistic IT costs. His homework uncovered a solution in Web Content Management (WCM) software, which enables easy handling, updating and control of online content across any number of sites.

Once the software was implemented, the impact was radical: Orient Express moved under one umbrella brand which WCM helped to communicate consistently across every Web page. Assets were maximised by increasing to 80 sites in five different languages, and, most crucially, any change to any website could be made by one update which would automatically ripple through every site, cutting down on man hours dramatically.

WCM eliminates the need for a vast IT support team since any authorised employee, including marketing staff, can update the sites. Tickle applied this technology and the improved clarity and accuracy certainly helped Orient Express to generate a tenfold increase in online bookings and a dramatic increase in online revenues.

Getting correct and up to date information out to customers is vital for the continued success of any Web site. Another organisation, Visit Britain, faced a similar problem but in very different circumstances. Funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, it is responsible for creating ?.42bn of revenue from tourism each year, 15 percent of which comes from the Web. As such, it has 38 Web sites, localised into over 20 languages.

In 2001 Britain was in the grip of the foot and mouth outbreak and in the consequent years, following the threat of terrorism, Visit Britain was overwhelmed with requests for information from around the world. Updating every website and contending with multiple languages and platforms caused John Aitchison, systems development manager, to review the entire organisation's web strategy.

Aitchison implemented a WCM system which could disseminate the right information, in the right language, at the right time, to tourists around the globe. While still being able to personalise each website at a local level, information updates could filter directly through to every site from one central office. New country sites could be added quickly with minimum fuss, while the amount of time required from IT staff was vastly reduced.

Success of the new website was reflected by the amount of traffic on the site which increased from around half a million to 940,639 in the two years following the implementation of the new system. The site was also voted 'The World's Leading Tourism Authority Internet Site' at the World Travel Awards and Visit Britain estimates that its improved Internet presence is boosting annual tourist revenues by up to 15m sterling.

While WCM enables the distribution of information throughout websites, it also aids another vital aspect: brand protection. Company brands are the symbolic incarnation of everything associated with a product or service, and millions are spent on developing a brand to ensure a strong company fingerprint. According to our recent research - Brand Control on the Web?- companies are losing a grip of their brands as website numbers spiral out of control. However, updating and maintaining brand content can be achieved by harnessing WCM solutions. WCM enables companies to maintain the consistency of the mother brand throughout the network of sites while still allowing sites at a local level to appeal to their particular regional markets.

Look, for example, at Virgin. The instantly recognisable global organisation includes numerous subsidiary companies in different sectors, including tourism, which are all run independently but unfailingly incorporate a consistent brand identity.

A recent study revealed that web users take just one twentieth of a second after seeing a web page for the first time to make a decision about its visual appeal. Brand consistency needs to take priority on your Web site to immediately establish those hard earned brand messages.

Looking to the future, clearly more sites will be moving into the era of Web 2.0: we will see extra features and functionality as well as a localisation of core content, including blogs, which provide a sense of personalisation.

Managing all these sources of content will rapidly cause a huge headache and you should look to automate the process of maintaining them as much as you can. If you don't engage in this next phase of the online revolution are you really getting the benefits promised by the Web or are you simply replacing an army of travel agents with an army of IT staff?