IMPROVED DESTINATION WEBSITE SET TO INSPIRE MORE VISITS TO ABU DHABI

- Mobile-friendly design and mash-up map technology improvements to visitabudhabi.ae -

All India, 5th March 2015 : Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority (TCA Abu Dhabi) is hoping to inspire more travellers to experience Abu Dhabi's expanding tourism products portfolio with a revamped visitabudhabi.ae website showcasing many of the emirate’s best experiences, hotels and restaurants. The online facelift was revealed today at the Abu Dhabi pavilion at ITB Berlin, the largest travel trade show in the world. Developed by TCA Abu Dhabi, the website’s new design includes around 300,000 words and 4,000 images in support of different products and experiences that can be enjoyed across a number of the most commonly requested information categories. TCA Abu Dhabi Acting Executive Director, Marketing & Communications, Mouza Al Shamsi, said the website's overhaul would help better connect the consumer with the emirate by providing 'inspirational experiences' which consumers could enjoy and book. We constantly strive to make our digital marketing platforms engaging and informative, and with these latest improvements, have now become much more responsive to our customers. With this new site we can now showcase the destination through thematic experiences that reflect our diversity in landscape, culture, heritage, attractions and accommodation referring consumers directly to our industry partners. From the outset, the brief was to make the site more inspiring and visually appealing, and capitalise on the latest trends in digital engagement, she said. The exciting new online look, incorporating a mobile-friendly, responsive design also features the latest user interface techniques, and TripAdvisor reviews are embedded to attraction and hotel listings information to reflect user generated content allowing users to share impartial advice on the site. A new Mash-up map - a single graphical interface that uses content from more than one source to create a single information reference - collates nearby points of interests, hotels, restaurants and attractions, spas and events allowing users to learn and experience more when visiting or researching things to see and do. The new information architecture highlighting what to see and do, where to stay and how to explore the emirate has been rolled out in nine language versions (Arabic, English, Brazilian-Portuguese, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese,  and Russian) and also features a social media wall linking directly to the Authority’s social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest and Foursquare). The website's multilingual hotel, flight and car rental search engine with real-time results from multiple booking engines remains, along with its trip planner facility which allows travellers to plan their journey to Abu Dhabi in advance, and share their itinerary ideas with their friends. An Arabic phrasebook, downloadable guides & maps, currency converter, weather forecast and detailed Frequently Asked Questions sections rounds off the new and exciting features, all of which will be on display at the ITB Berlin Abu Dhabi pavilion in an interactive iPad-based competition and 'cloud-biking' experiential booth, just one of 90 product experiences participating at the exhibition. Reaching over four million visits a year and more than 40,000 daily clicks during peak periods, further planned visitor experience enhancements include responsive language version landing page interfaces and improvements to the existingvisitabudhabi.ae mobile applications on all key platforms. Conceived with travellers' needs in mind, VisitAbuDhabi.ae is a one-stop-shop for tourists who want to explore the emirate, giving them easy access to interact with extensive, dynamic information on Abu Dhabi’s attractions and experiences, culture and heritage, events and recreation activities. Supported by a comprehensive on- and offline mobile application featuring location-based functionality and detailed attraction, listings and experience information, visitabudhabi.ae is one of a number of informative websites operated by TCA Abu Dhabi, which include AbuDhabiEvents.ae - the authoritative online resource bringing together all event happenings in the emirate, and AbuDhabi-cb.ae, a portal for the Abu Dhabi Convention Bureau. Dedicated social media accounts support the destination’s sites and encourage travellers to become active contributors, to post, comment, get inspired and share their experience, promoting the use of #InAbuDhabi throughout all digital destination promotion. Stay in touch with the latest information on Abu Dhabi at: visitabudhabi.ae facebook.com/visitabudhabi twitter.com/visitabudhabi gplus.to/visitabudhabi youtube.com/visitabudhabi pinterest.com/visitabudhabi foursquare.com/visitabudhabi instagram.com/visitabudhabi