Create a Flash tourist map

What is a Flash tourist map ? This is best explained by a real life example.

We have school holidays coming up soon and we are looking for activities for the whole family at a reasonable cost. As a family we tend to prefer outdoor activity close to civilised facilities. We have searched the web and found a resort in the mountains offering quality accommodation and plenty of hiking, caving and kayaking.

There is an interesting tourist map on the first page. The tourist map showed different facilities such as:

• Accommodation
• A wildlife area
• Caves to explore
• Hiking trails
• Kayaking routes

As we ran the mouse over the tourist map we could hear the roar of a waterfall, the singing of the birds and the wind in the trees in different areas. When we clicked on the cave mouth the sound died and the silence was almost as loud as the birdsong had been. Each area we explored had a set of videos to capture our interest and some extra information like timetables and costs for the different offerings. We felt well informed and liked what we saw.

A good tourist map can make the business of a tourist operator so much easier. Once a potential customer has spent time looking at the options available he or she will be more likely to spend their money.

People react better to image and sound than they do to plain text so a flash tourist map will provide a more pleasing experience which will lead to a higher conversion rate.

There are other advantages of using a flash tourist map . Flash is interactive and can respond to the wishes of a customer for more information. This increases the level of satisfaction which in turn leads to a better relationship with the prospect who is looking to become a customer.

Another bonus is that once created, a flash presentation of a tourist map can be embedded in an HTML or PHP web page, a Wordpress page or blog post. The real kicker is that it can ALSO be included in PowerPoint and similar presentation software.

The whole tourist map package can be copied to a CD or DVD and used for direct marketing. It has a lasting value as people will reuse the package for ordering especially when you include a coupon discount code. The CD can link directly to your web site and so is a valuable lead source with a long use-life.

But that is a whole other story…