The first version of the revised Visitfinland.com has been published
The revised Visitfinland.com website presents Finland as a unique year-round destination. Simple in structure but inspiring in content, the site supports tourists in getting inspired and making plans.
More and more tourists are using the web as a source of inspiration, information, and decision-making. This has increased the demand for a stronger and more interesting digital presence. The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the tourism industry and the behavior of tourists, and also Visitfinland.com must adapt to these changes.
– Our goal was to create a state-of-the-art, modern, and customer-oriented website that helps international tourists dream of Finland, get inspired by it, and plan their stay. The website unites tourists and tourism products more directly than before and offers a larger amount of practical information, shares Mervi Holmén, project manager of the revised Visit Finland website.
The version online now is the first version, and the website will be continuously developed. Some of the content, functionalities, and translations into eight different languages will be published later in the spring.
– We are constantly developing the site on the basis of data and user feedback. In the future, the site will also contain personalized and localized content, for example. We want to achieve the best user experience in the world one step at a time, comments Sara Terho, editor-in-chief of Visitfinland.com.
New translations into eight different languages and parallel sites are under development
In the future, the site will also serve the media, tour operators, and regional tourism organizations. The sections targeted for these audiences will be published in March.
The version currently online is in English. The other eight language options (Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, French, Swedish, German, and Russian) will be published during March. More content will be added to the site on the basis of what tourists in different markets find interesting. Involving customers in the development of the site is important.
– The design of the customer-oriented digital brand experience began with an international Traveller Mindsets survey, and the site’s prototypes were tested with customers from the target market. We will continue to utilize international customer insights and customer involvement in building a distinctive country brand for tourists and creating new content, Holmén explains.
More visual and more accessible
The revision also gave the website a fresh new look and a wealth of technical features that are invisible to visitors. These will make the site more versatile, user-friendly, and accessible. As part of Business Finland, Visit Finland is also committed to the EU Web Accessibility Directive and its legal implementation in the provision of digital services. Visitfinland.com meets the web content accessibility levels A and AA.
The Visit Finland DataHub plays an important role on the new website. All product information on the revised website comes from the DataHub database, which already contains almost 1,000 tourism enterprises and data on nearly 2,000 products. The amount of data is constantly increasing.
– The integration between DataHub and the website serves both the tourist and the industry, as it is now easier for tourists to find services that may interest them, comments Terho.
With the launch of Visitfinland.com, it is hoped that companies will invest in high-quality product information and photos on DataHub.
More information about the development work on VisitFinland.com and its next steps will be published during the spring. During the construction of the site, visitors are automatically redirected to the address new.visitfinland.com, but during the spring, as the development of the site progresses, the familiar visitfinland.com address will be restored.
Visit the new Visitfinland.com
Watch the Visitfinland.com presentation video:
