Travel & Tourism Technology Trends

Prerequisites:

In order to successfully complete this daily action, you will need:

1. An Internet connection because you will be doing on-line research.

Estimated Time for Completion: 1-2 hours

Details:

Websites can be a pain to maintain, if you don’t have the right tools or the skills to do it.  In the early days, you would have to pay a web designer to make changes on your website every time you wanted to update a bit of content, some tour information, or even pricing.  Now, however, there are a myriad of tools for you to use that make your website management easier.  These tools are referred to as content management systems.  But, there are a lot of them out there and they range in price, functionality, and ease of use.  Here are the top three that I recommend to tour and activity operators who are considering a content management system:

Drupal – Drupal is an opensource content management system which has been around for quite a while and is very rich in it’s feature set.  Although it is opensource (and technically free) it is not a simple system to use if you expect to add features or make customizations.  You will most likely still need a developer to help you install and set-up your Drupal site.  If you want to ensure your site is secure, you will also need to keep on top of the security notifications and updates for the system.  These are many and frequent, so be warned.

According to the post on AnswerBag.com “What is the difference between Joomla (Mambo) and Drupal“, one commenter notes that you should you Drupal if:

you want a rock solid & high quality platform for your sites

you want or need a real multi-site-feature (only one installation for several sites)

you need any kind of user groups & user permissions

you need to run also membership- and community sites, not only CMS etc

you want a Powerful templating system

you’re ready to invest a bit of your time in order to realize all the huge possibilities of Drupal

you understand the meaning of clear, high quality code and API (easy to integrate with other solutions etc)

you want flexibility and don’t like limitations

Requirements: Linux (Preferable), Apache, PHP, MySQL.

You can find out more about Drupal at http://www.drupal.org.

Joomla – Joomla is an opensource content management system similar to Drupal.  The Joomla community has also been around for quite a few years and was formerly a branch of the original CMS known as Mambo.  Joomla is also quite a powerful content management system and is designed for a much less technical user.  The same article states that you should consider Joomla if:

you don’t know about the tech stuff at all

you want easy install & setup with your mouse

you don’t want to learn the tool you’re using

you don’t need to integrate other scripts etc. to your site

you want a candy site and don’t mind several other sites using the same template(s)

you don’t need SEO out of the box

you don’t care about server resources

you’re running (or planning to to run) only one or max a couple of sites

you don’t need one log-in to several sites

you don’t need user groups & permissions

you don’t run membership site(s)

Requirements: Linux (Preferable), Apache, PHP, MySQL.

You can find out more about Joomla at http://www.joomla.com.

WordPress – Many would argue that WordPress is not a content management system but a blogging platform. Although the roots of WordPress are in blogging, the system itself lends itself well to being a CMS.  The platform is also remarkably easy to use for a novice, but also extremely flexible for the developer.  The core software itself is also supported by hundreds of add-on widgets and plug-ins.  Just like the iPhone, if you want to add something to your website, chances are there is a plug-in for that.  Customizing the look and feel of a WordPress site is also extremely easy to do with the template or theme system.  If you use a hosting platform like Bluehost.com for example, you can add new themes and customize them without ever using an FTP client.

Requirements: Linux (Preferable), Apache, PHP, MySQL.

You can find out more about WordPress at: http://www.wordpress.org

Outcome:

If you are successful at completing this daily action, you will have chosen a content management system to use for your website.