Kyoto City revamps international tourism website Kyoto.Travel

Kyoto City Mayor Daisaku Kadokawa has announced the completion of a project to renew and enhance the usability of Kyoto City’s official website for foreign travellers, the “Kyoto Official Travel Guide.” The new website now features 13 languages and a direct booking mechanism for accommodation, restaurants and experiences. An additional enhancement is that the updated website also includes content and engagement from TripAdvisor, the world’s most popular trip information website.

In July this year, Kyoto was ranked as “World’s Best City” in internationally renowned Travel & Leisure magazine’s readers’ poll, “World’s Best Awards 2014”. Following this accolade, Mayor Kadokawa explained that, “With the confirmation of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics and the world’s attention focusing on Japan, the City of Kyoto is taking measures to enhance our ability to send out information about the attractions of Kyoto to foreign travellers.”

“At this time we would like to announce that our foreign traveller-targeted Kyoto tourism website established in 2007, the “Kyoto Official Travel Guide,” has undergone an extensive and comprehensive renewal.”

“We would like for this site to function as a portal for the world to Kyoto, and to improve our ability to send out information about Kyoto to the world.”

Points addressed by the renewal:

1.Cooperation with TripAdvisor, the world’s biggest travel information site

Adding a link to TripAdvisor on the top page of the “Kyoto Official Travel Guide” and the accommodation booking page makes it possible for travellers’ to compare the information of Kyoto City’s official website with word-of-mouth information by travellers’, and enables users to select a hotel that fits their needs.

2.Cooperation with private companies makes direct reservation of accommodation, experiences, restaurants and shopping possible

With the cooperation of private companies, there are links on the “Kyoto Official Travel Guide” website to said companies’ websites, gathering more information in one place and increasing the Travel Guide’s ability to draw in customers. This change will make it easier for users to access concrete information relevant to their needs in addition to the official information at the Kyoto City website, and the functionality of being able to book reservations at the linked sites will increase the overall usefulness of the website.

3.Support for 13 languages; more than any other domestic local government

Support for five more languages added to previous support for eight, for a total of 13. Supported languages English, traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, Hangul, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Malay, Turkish, Arabic, Thai, Russian

4.Mobile Support

Over 40% of foreign travellers’ research trip information using mobile devices, and therefore Kyoto City has adopted a display method (responsive design) that works with various media devices. In the near future it will be possible to access the “Kyoto Official Travel Guide” with mobile devices at the 656 KYOTO Wi-Fi locations in the city, located at subway stations, bus stops etc. so that the guide can be consulted during a trip and not just before the trip.

sourced:traveldailynews.asia