The European Tour Operators Association (ETOA) has launched a new website (www.etoa.org).
The home page has a minimalist design including a site search box and simple signposting to other parts of the site. The interface contains roll-over displays and pop-up windows to increase the visitor’s sense of engagement and to facilitate intuitive search. It exhibits a noticeable brand refresh with colour schemes matching ETOA’s existing e-marketing campaigns.
Content has been made more readily available with improved sections for resources, media and events. Prospective members and the press will now be able to discover more about the association with useful information being closer at hand. Greater use of video and social media are also evident and the site will be accessible through a wide range of browsers and devices, including mobiles and tablets.
Today is the launch of the first phase of the redesign, with a second stage scheduled in a few months time, when a members-only portal will be added.
Quba designed and developed ETOA’s new website, taking inspiration from Google. Jon Eaton, Quba’s New Business Manager said: ‘Visitors arrive at www.etoa.org trying to do a lot of different things. We realised that a conventional navigation system would not work for all enquiries. This made site search a really important part of the design which is why it is so prominent on each page – users will be able to find exactly what they want from anywhere on the website.’
Magdalena Osmola, ETOA’s Head of Marketing & Communications said: ‘We are very excited to have launched our new website after almost a full year in development. This is an important step in the implementation of ETOA’s wider marketing strategy; increasing brand awareness, attracting new members and promoting our members’ interests and inbound European tourism more broadly. Our goals were to make it easier and faster for visitors to navigate and more straightforward for our in-house team to manage. We chose to work with Quba not only for their design ideas but also because they guided us through the SEO processes, which was a priority during the refresh.’
ETOA is keen to receive feedback on the new website, which is very much work in progress, and is asking new visitors to email comments to office@etoa.org. It is particularly interested to know if users like the new design, if they have encountered any bugs and if there are any obvious improvements that can be made.
