Newsgroup: it.hobby.viaggi
Titolo: Sui siti web degli Uffici del Turismo

Dal New York Times di oggi:
Tourism Offices Get Web Savvy
By BOB TEDESCHI
OR travel-research snobs, tourism bureau brochures are the poor man's
planning tool - too often packed with stale photos and swooning profiles of
the region's attractions, and too rarely filled with the sort of practical
tips that can make a trip.
On the Web, though, tourism bureaus can be considerably more useful. Freed
from the constraints of 64-page booklets, many national tourism
organizations have built comprehensive Web sites in recent years, with
helpful information and narratives that, while not exactly hard-hitting, can
be worth listening to.
Not surprisingly, most of these sites are available in English; many have
sections devoted to American travelers in particular.
Of the 128 million or so Internet users in the United States, Barry
Southers, 34, is probably one of the more well versed in the ways of foreign
tourism Web sites. Mr. Southers, an M.R.I. technologist at the University of
Cincinnati and avid international traveler, has leaned on these sites for
suggestions for seven years.
A Worldwide Directory
In the process, Mr. Southers says he has mostly shunned United States-based
publishers of travel guides, both online and off. "I've just enjoyed the
sites better from the countries themselves," Mr. Southers said. "They seem
easier to navigate, they have more information, more pictures. You can read
about the Loire Valley all day long, but if you see pictures, that gets
you."
Rather than head for search engines to find a particular national or
regional Web site, Mr. Southers says he first checks 
www.towd.com
, the
Tourism Offices Worldwide Directory. The directory, which is edited and
published by Brian Lucas, a Winnipeg-based Web site developer, lists more
than 1,300 "official tourism offices," including those of national and local
governments, convention and visitors bureaus, chambers of commerce and other
organizations.
The site offers pull-down menus for searching nations and regions, and while
fast and easy to use, it is not without flaws. For instance, using my Mac, I
selected Bhutan from the menu of nations and was given a page describing the
directory's mission. (No big surprise: many Web sites treat Macs like
second-class citizens.) On a Windows-based machine, though, the site listed
Bhutan's Tourism Department site, 
www.tourism.gov.bt
, with its address,
phone numbers and e-mail address.
More impressive were the listings for popular destinations like Germany,
which included its official tourism Web site, with more links and contact
information for Germany's local tourism offices in various cities within and
outside the United States.
Geared to Americans
Like a growing number of nations, Germany has built a site for American
travelers, among others. Near the top left-hand side of its main tourism
site, Germany-tourism.de, is a link yielding 26 sites tailored to specific
countries and constituencies.
The American site is much like the main English-language version of the
site, in that it features vacation ideas, 600 panoramic photos and links to
cities and towns. Those links provide decent overviews, but they are so
breathless at times that they lose credibility. (A description of the old
mining town of Freiburg gushes: "Where else can you find so many
superlatives?") Elsewhere, as on the site's Munich page, important
information is sometimes missing. The Munich page brims with detailed
information on the city's attractions, but it placed a key destination - the
memorial at the Dachau concentration camp - at the bottom of the page. It
was listed merely as "Dachau," with no description or links for more
information. And in a later visit to the site, it wasn't there at all.
The site's American version (also at 
www.visits-to-germany.com
) improves on
the English version in that it provides travel bargain information. From the
home page, click on the "special deals" tab. For instance, last month the
site promoted a two-for-one airline ticket deal from Lufthansa and United to
German and other European cities, as well as vacation packages from
PrideWorld Travel.com, a travel company for gays and lesbians.
Bargain packages are available on other national tourism sites as well.
While preparing for a trip last summer to Japan, Jennifer Pedersen, a
teacher at the Crestridge School of International/Global Studies in Omaha,
found such a package on the Japan National Tourist Organization Web site,
www.japantravelinfo.com
.
Ms. Pedersen, who teaches Japanese and lived in Japan in the late 80's,
looked in the Hot News section and found an offer to visit about 30
attractions in Tokyo for $18 (the Grutt Pass), with instructions on where to
buy it in Japan. Once armed with that pass, she toured the Asakura Choso
Museum, the home of the sculptor Fumio Asakura, who died in 1964. Asakura
had built, she recalled, "an incredible garden in the center of the house,
with bridges and water, and with walls and windows that opened onto the
garden."
A Few Caveats
Sometimes the tourism bureau sites aren't run by tourism bureaus themselves.
Take Russia-travel.com, Russia's official tourism site for Americans. It is
actually maintained by the Russian National Group, a New York-based travel
wholesaler.
According to Dina Kevra, the Russian National Group's executive manager, the
site regularly updates currency exchange rates and travel deals, among other
elements.
While the site can inform, it occasionally disregards the needs and tastes
of mainstream travelers, as evidenced by an ad this month on the home page
for an international dating service called A Foreign Affair, for men seeking
women overseas.
Some sites still have glitches; 
www.visitmexico.com
, more artfully crafted
than many other tourism-bureau sites, was from time to time unavailable in
January. (A Web site representative in Mexico said they were working on it.)
Web Sites
China Tourism, 
www.cnta.com/lyen
: A vast site, at times cutting-edge, at
times trailing-edge. The interactive map shuttles you quickly to a selected
region, but photos in those sections are sometimes in short supply.
Occasional translation slips.
Mexico Tourism Board, 
www.visitmexico.com
: Polished and high tech with
interactive maps, a comprehensive listing of destinations and activities and
a currency converter. Intermittent glitches.
Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism, 
www.tourismturkey.org
: Good for
broad travel ideas, less helpful with specifics. Divided into regional
sections, with a handful of photos in each.
Egyptian Tourist Authority, 
www.egypttourism.org
: Listings broken down by
travel interests (culture, religion, diving, etc.), with destination options
within those categories. Informative; short on photos.
Japan National Tourist Organization, 
www.japantravelinfo.com
: Designed for
North Americans, easily navigable. Good deals sometimes found in Hot News
section.
E-mail: 
tede...@nytimes.com

 planning tool
*************
Naturalmente, la prima parola è "For".
Carla:-)


[CUT]
Grazie, molto interessante!!!

Grazie, molto interessante!!!
*********
Non c'č di che!:-)
Buona domenica,
Carla:-)