According to research by Continental Research, the UK is the top destination for internet users when planning their holidays and it is estimated that 17 million people will book part or all of their holiday online. The poll also outlined the importance of tourist board websites in providing value to visitors. It is going to be interesting to see how these sites evolve in the face of social networking sites. Tourist boards and Destination marketing organisations do have advantages over other sites, such as a high level of public trust and that they act as a first base for consumers before they look into specific tourism services.

This festive season has again seen big increases in the number of people purchasing online. Whether it is down to improved content, increased trust in the medium or other factors such as convenience or bulk buying, the uptake in users booking their holidays online looks set to continue to rise. One example is Cumbria Tourism who have recently conducted a visitor survey and have found that internet bookings has tripled in four years, representing almost a third of all bookings. No doubt this is helped with a terrific site. The site scores highly from an accessibility perspective and is very easy to use. Coupled with great content that is presented in the various themes playing to the area’s strengths (such as lakes/outdoors and more topically Beatrix Potter) and a good balance between information and images the site provides an excellent browsing experience.

[Source: TravelMole]