Its unlikely that one web site can fully demonstrate everything about a city. A large, three-dimensional city, with an engaging population, filled with uniqueness, history, and a wide array of just about anything one might want can be difficult to display on the two-dimensional web.
Still, it’s what cities do in an attempt to attract visitors, conventions and tourists. Experience Columbus launched it’s new web site just two days ago.
Big yawn.
Really big yawn.
The content is flat, bland and outside of the logo, has little that makes Columbus appear nothing more than a photo-bank of generic images.
Pictures of people eating dinner – stock photo – anywhere USA
Pictures of fans at a sporting event – stock photo – anywhere USA
Picture of a parade – stock photo – anywhere USA
Picture of a busy shopping street – stock photo – anywhere USA
PIcture of the ballet – stock photo – anywhere USA
Sure, the site highlights some of our local food and attractions, but those kinds of things are available on any visitor’s bureau site. Compare it to most cities CVB (convention and visitors bureau) sites, and you’ll find very similar content. Have a look at Kansas City’s site and you’ll see something VERY similar.
Experience Columbus has added information on multiculturalism with some stats surrounding the city’s demographics, as well as a page for gay and lesbian visitors. Some statistics that might generally be overlooked, but again, nothing all that unique.
The video, “The Streets Where I Live” by Donna Mogavero, as well as the Short North video by TurnHere.com (a California company) are the most unique parts of the site, though they are buried within links (try to find them) when perhaps, these original items could be prominent features. Both are far more engaging than any other part of the site.
Minneapolis’ site has some neat interviews with local trendsetters embedded into their site. That’s engaging and truly says something about the community. Salt Lake’s site has a unique front page that allows a potential visitor to do some virtual exploration. Even Detroit’s site makes an attempt to add “cool” for those having a look-see.
One would think that in a city that thrives on newness, that’s fairly hip and cool, and is the Indie Art Capital of the world, would have something unique to show it’s potential visitors and conventioneers. The fact that the convention center abuts two great neighborhoods is also unique. Most convention centers are built in sterile environs. Ours is not, and that should be celebrated.
Wouldn’t you agree that meeting the people of a city is always more interesting than a sight-seeing tour? For example, Experience Columbus could have a page on YouTube where locals post their own Columbus experiences and link it to their official site. They could even host a competition for the local arts community to create a unique web presence.
To their credit, Experience Columbus stacks up pretty well when it comes to “booking” the city’s convention and hotel space. Good people will always outshine a web site and selling a city is a very competitive, as they’re all trying to capture tourist and convention dollars. Showing potential clients snippets of content is what every other city is doing. Why not do something bold, edgy, memorable, innovative and fresh?
Creating portal is a logical place to start and it shouldn’t just demonstrate how much we’re alike, it should demonstrate our uniqueness and vitality, something that’s desperately missing on the “official” web site for Columbus visitors.
If you’re interested in what other cities are doing, use Google and search for “[city name] CVB” or “Visit [city name]”. The first hit is usually their official visitors site.
