Kerala Tourism’s official website has been relaunched with a responsive design optimised for viewing on multiple devices, including mobile phones and tablets. The site, rebuilt with HTML 5 has become a content-rich portal with all the information that a traveller to Kerala would need.
The website, www.keralatourism.org, offers a far superior browsing experience for users than before, and an interface that automatically gets customised for the device accessing it, irrespective of a laptop, desktop, a smartphone or a tablet.
The award-winning website hosts 1,500 images and 3,000 videos and provides a virtual tour of destinations besides interactive tools such as intelligent itinerary planner, online galleries, video quizzes, webcasts, e-books and e-newsletters. “As we expand our tourism promotional activities to more countries, we are also taking every effort to ensure all our services are world-class,” Tourism Minister A P Anil Kumar said. “Kerala is keen to attract the tech-savvy global traveller and we are happy to be offering them the incentives to visit our state,’’ he added.
Kerala Tourism’s website is currently available in 18 languages, including seven Indian languages. On an average, the site gets more than 2,50,000 visits a month. “Our focus now is on maximizing the use of technology not just in promotion but across all our products and services,” Tourism Secretary Suman Billa said. Since its launch, the redesigned website has been getting steadily increasing page views. “The new website has a truly contemporary design that is visually appealing, with a clutter-free interface and easy access,” said Tourism Director S Harikishore.
The official website was launched in 1998 as an HTML website with a weekly e-mail newsletter. It has since won numerous awards, including the prestigious Award instituted by the Government of India for the ‘Most Innovative Use of Information Technology’ and ‘Best Tourism Website Portal’ during the years 2000-2001, 2002-2003, 2005-2006 and 2010-11. The website also bagged PC World Magazine’s Net 4 PC World Web Award 2008 for Best Indian Website in the category of Tourism. International recognition for the Tourism Department’s online initiatives came in the form of the Pacific Asia Travel Association’s (PATA) Gold Award for the best website in 2010 and the PATA award for the best E-Newsletter in 2005 and 2012.
In terms of web traffic, the site was among the top 10 tourism websites in the Asia Pacific and the Middle East regions.