Bath Heritage embraces online to engage with
tourists from across the globe
Alterian technology will power websites for five of the
county’s top tourist attractions
LONDON, UK – 16 June 2009 – Tourists will be
able to engage online with some of Bath’s most popular historic
attractions for years to come thanks to a partnership signed with
Alterian (LSE:ALN) and Fusion Workshop to enhance the
end user experience on its flagship websites.
Alterian’s Web Content Management (WCM)
technology was selected by the
Bath & North East Somerset Council Heritage Services to
redesign five of the key websites that promote Bath’s most popular
heritage attractions to national and international tourists,
including the Roman
Baths, Fashion
Museum and Victoria
Art Gallery.
For years, potential visitors to Bath have
been able to view virtual displays of the museums’ collections and
take virtual tours of the exhibition galleries online before
physically visiting the attractions themselves.
Bath Heritage Services wanted to develop the user experience
further and ensure that its websites remained accessible and
easy-to-use for years to come, and would be able to incorporate
user generated content, blogs and forums in the future.
“It is vital that our heritage
websites are engaging for visitors and contain up-to-date
information that can be easily sourced and accessed as the web is
often the first port of call for tourists planning their
holidays.” said Patricia Dunlop, Commercial Manager, Bath
Heritage Services. “With so many editors contributing
content to the sites, we needed a WCM system that was simple to use
and could help us to future-proof our online presence to ensure
that Bath remains a tourist hotspot for years to
come”.
Alterian Content Management Corporate (CMC)
was selected to help the Council’s non-technical
users produce, maintain and control complex websites in a
simple manner. The platform’s multilingual capabilities were an
added attraction; English is not the first language for
approximately 20% of the sites visitors, so giving them the
opportunity to engage with the site in their preferred language was
important.
All public sector websites are obligated to
comply with strict accessibility regulations. This can cause
problems when there are multiple content editors, but the built-in
checker function in Alterian CMC ensures that every single page is
compliant with all legislation before it can be published and
therefore that that the site meets all legal requirements. Sites
found in breach of these regulations can be liable high profile and
expensive litigation.
David Eldridge, CEO of Alterian, concluded,
“Our WCM technology has always been popular with public
sector organisations thanks to its cost effective implementation,
engaging interface and accessibility checker that ensures
compliance. We are very pleased that Bath Heritage Services
selected Alterian to overhaul its online presence and recognised
the strength of our platform. Bath is a fantastic example to other
councils and organisations of how heritage, which is of central
important to a city’s economy, can continue to remain accessible to
tourists in the 21st century.”
About Alterian
Alterian (LSE: ALN) empowers organizations to
create relevant, effective and engaging experiences with their
audience that help build value and reinforce commitment to their
brand, through the use of the Alterian Integrated
Marketing Platform. Alterian drives the transformation of
marketing and communications, making it practical and
cost-effective for companies to orchestrate multichannel engagement
with the individual.
Alterian’s unprecedented integration of
analytics, content and execution through industry leading tools,
such as the Dynamic Messenger email platform and the award winning
Content Management solutions, enables companies to build integrated
communication strategies which create a true picture of the
individual.
Alterian works with marketing services
partners, system integrators and agencies who recognize the need to
plan and deliver coordinated customer engagement services in
partnership with their clients. For more information about
Alterian, products within the Alterian Integrated Marketing
Platform or Alterian’s Partner Network, visit http://www.alterian.com/ or the
Alterian blog at http://www.this-is-marketing.com/.
About Bath & North East
Somerset Council:
The five websites which are run by the
Heritage Services section of Bath & North East Somerset Council
include:
http://www.romanbaths.co.uk/
http://www.fashionmuseum.co.uk/
http://www.victoriagal.org.uk/
http://www.batharchives.co.uk/
http://www.bathvenues.co.uk/
The Roman Baths and the famous Pump Room above
it receive more than 1 million visitors per annum, half of them
from overseas. Most of these have never visited the UK before
and are making their first trip to the Bath area.
The Roman Baths were built in the first
century AD as a religious spa and temple. They were visited by
pilgrims from all over the Roman Empire for nearly four hundred
years until they fell into decline in the fourth century. The
museum has a Roman collection of international importance including
12,000 Roman coins deposited in the hot spring at the centre of the
site. This collection and related items of more recent local
history will be showcased on the new websites.
The complex is also popular among
schoolchildren at key stages 2 and 3 who study the Romans as part
of the national curriculum. The new website includes film
footage of a typical school visit, created by local film company
Constellation Media Ltd to assist teachers in their planning.
The Fashion Museum collection is
internationally renowned and is housed in Bath’s magnificent
Assembly Rooms, built in 1771. This website is the most
popular of all, because of a worldwide interest in historic
fashion. It and the Victoria Art Gallery each receive 100,000
visitors per annum. The Gallery has a popular temporary
exhibition programme including some selling exhibitions by
prominent local artists. These are supported by on-line
catalogues of the works for sale.
The Bath Record Office website is a must for
people researching their family history, which nowadays relies
heavily on on-line access to relevant information.
About the Project:
Fusion Workshop has been looking after the
Fashion Museum website since 1999 and those for the Bath Record
Office, Roman Baths and Victoria Art Gallery since 2001.
The project’s main aim is to provide Bath
& North East Somerset Council with a future-proof Content
Management System to carry over it over the next seven years and
beyond and can also enhance the delivery of its online presence
via:
· The provision of
a future-proof platform
· Enabling the
Council to leverage its current investment
· Delivering a
robust, scalable and flexible website
· Maintaining
organic search engine optimisation and also further enhancing
it.
· Integrating the
sites with existing systems
· Enabling the
marketing team to create and manage campaigns that deliver
results.
· Ensuring good
usability and user experience features
· Conforming to
Disability Discrimination Act for web accessibility (W3C level
1-2)
About Fusion Workshop
Fusion Workshop analyses, builds, develops,
implements and manages business-driven web solutions for their
customers. The company focuses on the following sectors: heritage
& performing arts, travel & tourism, education, third
sector & membership organisations, financial services and local
government.
The company delivers web projects from
consultancy through specification and development to completion and
ongoing support. It specialises in integration and standards-based
Internet projects, and prides itself on a structured (PRINCE2)
project management approach with cross-functional teams. Its formal
requirements gathering process uses the concepts of stakeholder
representation, viewpoints and perspectives to ensure that
requirements and quality criteria are captured for analysis.
Fusion Workshop is an experienced Alterian
Corporate Content Management System partner. The company works in
Microsoft ASP.Net and SQL Server. It also has strong ColdFusion
expertise (including migration of these systems to ASP.Net).
See http://www.fusionworkshop.co.uk/