visitmalta.com web portal - latest updates

In addition to the original version in English and the one in Italian launched in February to coincide with the BIT Fair in Milan, another two language version went online during the month of March. The version in German was officially launched at the ITB in Berlin – one of the top annual travel events in the world. This was done simultaneously with the French version, with each of these versions comprising practically all of the 800 pages of information available in English. Meanwhile, plans are already under consideration for the introduction of other language versions, with the aim of better serving the needs of the portal's vast international audience.

The Malta Tourism Authority's new e-tourism portal was officially launched on the 19th of January 2007. Replacing the highly successful website www.visitmalta.com, which had served MTA and the local tourism sector well for over five years, the new portal was designed to be the prime destination-marketing tool for the Maltese Islands whilst providing a channel for facilitating online presence and potential e-commerce benefits for local stakeholders interested in exploiting e-tourism.

Indeed, the principal difference between the previous informational website and the current transactional portal is the addition of an advanced, yet easy-to-use, 'one-stop shop' functionality. Visitmalta.com currently provides online booking facilities for a range of services including accommodation and flights, with car-hire to be added during April and other useful services (such as entrance tickets for heritage sites and events) in the coming months.

Meanwhile, the success of the portal can be evidenced by the fact that in the first three months of operation visitmalta.com attracted an average of 12,960 visitors daily. What is even more encouraging is that the numbers appear to be growing with time, so much so that the average for March amounted to 14,011 daily visitors. A peak was achieved on the 6th of March when of over 17,910 visitors accessed the portal.

In the span of less than three months since its launch, the portal was visited a staggering 903,193 times.

As reported last month, the vast majority of these visitors – more than 97% - come from overseas, with the Netherlands, United Kingdom and USA topping the list of source countries. Four out of every five visitors are newcomers to the site, indicating a real interest by online surfers in the portal. The remaining 20% are repeat visitors, indicating a strong loyalty, so critical to the overall success of the portal.

During the month of March, Thursday was the busiest day of the week, whereas Sunday remained the day with the lowest number of visitors. This appears to be a persistent trend for travel-related portals such as visitmalta.com, and reflects the pattern of usage of such sites by would-be travellers who consult such portal to gather information prior to making their travel decisions.

The busiest time of day in terms of visitor inflow to the portal continued to be the late afternoon and early evening, peaking between 4 pm and 5 pm.

On average, visitors to the portal spent just over 11 minutes browsing the site or making use of its facilities. This is considered to be a very good duration, taking into account the tendency of internet users to click in and out of websites quickly if they don't find what they seek, or if the information is not sufficiently interesting or useful.

The most popular feature of the site remains the Interactive Map, which is a practical and useful navigation tool and gives a visual overview of what the islands have to offer in a geographical context, subdivided according to subject categories and areas of interest.

Among the various documents that are available for download from the portal, the most popular during the month of March were the general Malta brochure, and the specialised brochures on Archaeology, Walking Tours, Culture and Learning English.

visitmalta.com Statistics Update

Statistics for: March 2007 (1/03/07 – 31/03/07)
Access frequency: Average of 14,011 daily visitors.
Busiest day of the week:: Thursday
Slowest day of the week:: Sunday
Busiest time of day:: 4:00pm-5:00pm
Average time spent on portal: 11.3
Demographics: 97.15% were international visitors; Mainly from USA, Netherlands, UK
Usage frequency: 81.06% of individuals visited the portal 1 time only; 3.07% of individuals visited the portal 10 times or more
Most popular downloads: Malta brochure, Archaeology, Walking Tours, Learning English, Culture
Most popular page: Interactive Map

This issue is available at: 0704.