Official Tourism Sites: Massachusetts & More

I recently received my latest edition of Connecticut Magazine and noticed an ad for MassVacation.com the official site of the Massachusetts board of tourism. I logged on this morning (from the office - doh!) and began to review the site. At first glance... lots of information and a revolving video link to the left side of the main site with 90, yes 90 30 second video clips of various well known and not so well known Massachusetts Tourist sites. I reviewed approximately 15 of these with 10 of them being "on the New England coast" and found this a fresh and most informative way of showing visitors what to look for... what to visit and most importantly what 2 do while in Massachusetts!

-courtesy of MassVacation.com

The use of videos that do not require loading & buffering then playing, often choppy has usually been a less than enjoyable affair, however whether they used flash or what have you... this is a fresh and great way to show what you have to offer!

Most of us when we travel like to see a picture or video of an area minus the standard tourist "fluff"-you know the kind that has the less than professional actors trying to sell something or the standard garden variety travel guide which is loaded with ads, coupons and text with little in terms of pictures (visual aides).

Kudos to www.Massvacation.com for this great way of promoting this state and all that there is to do!

Erstwhile I have also received brochures of Connecticut's and Rhode Island's Tourism Guides... and like most they are 90% content (text) and 10% pictures much of which is a simple "hard copy" of the website. The digital site of the Connecticut Tourism Site CTvisit.com is fresh and has lots of visuals but the hard copy is less than entertaining and looks to be updated only once in the past 10 years. Rhode Island's is a carbon copy of that. While I know that most boards of tourism are trying to limit the carbon footprint, use of printed materials and of course the cost in producing brochures in the case of tourism it is always nice to have something to hold on to. Show more pictures and give links to seeing videos, cut down the coupons and text and this is totally uninteresting to the majority of us. It has become like a poorly made power point presentation... trying to say everything in a limited space which essentially results in saying almost nothing about everything as room for hotel listings, attractions and their cost (the use of the dollar signs) takes up space. I understand the need to promote and the need to generate advertising revenue but please!

courtesy of CTvisit.com




courtesy of http://www.visitrhodeisland.com/

I would like to see the demographics or their target audiences. The Massachusetts site offers something for everyone while the other two.. well they think they are offering something for everyone but are really focusing on leaf peepers, empty nestors and those from New York and the big cities, yes those with lots of disposable income.

Anyway... a fresh approach by Massachusetts gets kudos from this blogger and www.thenewenglandcoast.com