Tourism Department launches new website

The National Department of Tourism (NDT) has launched its new website, the first stage in the progressive approach that has been adopted by the NDT to unlock the value of the Internet for all its stakeholders.

The site was built on Microsoft SharePoint 2010, a technology platform with a broad range of capabilities and features that will enable future collaboration between the NDT and its audiences.

Jay Singh, the Department’s Corporate Communications Director, said that, to unlock value of the online tourism industry, the NDT had looked at tourism departments all over the world to benchmark the department against the very best.

He said SharePoint 2010 had been selected for its optimised content search, interactive technology and ability to personalise parts of the site. “According to the Gartner Group, the world's leading information technology research and advisory company, web 2.0 is a transformative force that’s propelling organisations across all industries towards a new way of doing business, characterised by harnessing collective intelligence, openness and network effects.” 

In the short term, the website has been built and restructured around the information stage, which includes the information about the mandates upon which the department must deliver.

The next stages will be the engagement and networking phase and the collaboration phase, which includes individual profiling, interesting applications, supporting the tour guides, some automated processes such as knowledge creation and the extension of the NDT’s communication into social media.

“The department is committed to creating an environment conducive for growing and developing tourism through innovation, strategic partnerships and collaboration, providing information and knowledge management services, and strengthening institutional capacity,” said Singh.

For more information visit www.tourism.gov.za