Ministry of Tourism website wins media award

Ministry of Tourism website wins media award
Image courtesy of The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism and Aviation.

The official website for The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism and Aviation has won ‘Best In Class’ award in the category of Travel and Tourism last week at a prestigious media awards event.

Bahamas.com has proven itself popular with visitors, an achievement that has landed the destination the highest honor of the Interactive Media Awards.

According to a tourism official, “The website represents the very best in planning and execution.”

Officials at the ministry have been working hard and now depend heavily on analytics to drive smart, data-driven decision making.

To assist with data collection, the ministry has established a digital dashboard to view real time (statistics) traffic to the website, and engagement on all social media channels.

The site’s dashboard serves two functions. In addition to data collection, the website’s dashboard will also measure website visitors’ clicks on promotions to book, as well as, converting those ‘clicks’ to hot leads for hotel properties.

A commission-free, ‘hotel book’ direct engine was recently added to Bahamas.com. This service is powered by a company called JackRabbit.

For the period of December 1, 2017 to February 28, 2018, the “book now” links from individual hotels listed on Bahamas.com generated 5,040 leads directly to hotel partners, according to Tourism Director General Joy Jibrilu, who stated such growth indicates that tourism is heading in the right direction.

“This shows that we are moving in the right direction,” said Jibrilu.

“The islands of The Bahamas has benefited greatly from our online presence and the world is certainly taking notice.

“We are going to continue utilizing the array of digital platforms to show the world what we have to offer and why it is better in The Bahamas.”

Bahamas.com has seen significant increases in unique visitors and page views, according to Jibrilu.

She said that plans are also on the drawing board to continue to improve Bahamas.com, by enhancing the site’s capability for visitors to search for places to stay in The Bahamas.

The website will also expand individual property listings with larger imagery, videos, a map, relevant activities and Trip Advisor reviews.

Moreover, Bahamas.com won recognition by a very large and accredited organization within the web development industry called The Webby Awards.

The organization boasted about the islands of The Bahamas saying, “Congratulations once again to you and your team on EDUCO’s success as an Honoree in the 22nd Annual Webby Awards. Out of over 13,000 entries received from 70 countries and all 50 United States, your work was ranked among the top 18 per cent by the academy. That’s an incredible achievement!”

The Webby’s is presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS), a 2,000 plus member judging body.

The academy is comprised of executive members, leading web experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries, creative celebrities and associate members who are former Webby winners, nominees and other Internet professionals.