www.visitmt.com

     The Travel Montana website is probably the largest and most fun web site the folks here at Web Doodle have built. As Travel Montana is a state organization devoted to the promotion of tourism in Montana, they have a big plate that covers a lot of area. In the past Travel Montana has met this need by sending out Travel Packets, Magazine & Television ads, operating an 800 telephone line, and helping local city governments coordinate with businesses to help get their cities the exposure they need. For them it seemed like the next logical step was to get on the Internet.

     What they didn't realize, but soon found out, was that by putting the enormous amount of information they have on the Internet, they soon weren't sending out nearly as many packets, and thus saving lots of money. Within the first 3 years after the unveiling of the website they had reduced the number of packets sent out by 73%, which equated to tens of thousands of dollars.

     We are now entering the sixth year since the introduction of the Travel Montana web site. Earlier in the year it was rated # 2 in the world for Tourism Web sites out of hundreds reviewed. The site averages 3500 visitors per day, and is increasing at a rate of 11% per month.

     Now you're probably wondering, what did you do to make this site so popular? Well it started off with simply making the information available, then adding additional services such as the ability to make Online Reservations at the hotels of your choice. It also might have been the added attractions such as online postcards, pictures of the tourist attractions, and access to thousands of businesses that offer tourists a piece of Montana.

     The site consists of 10 major sections with an average of 15 sub sections each, and below that are an average of 1500 pages of sub-content relating to their sub-category. If you do the quick math 10x15x1500 that would equate to 225,000 web pages!!! But in all actuality it is only about 150 pages that create Dynamic content based on the area you are visiting.

     The Travel Montana web site is actually a set of 10 databases that all work in coordination to bring you the content you're looking for. The added benefit is that the folks at Travel Montana only need a minimal amount of computer experience as all they need to be able to do is type the new information into a simple form, and it is automatically added to the web site.

     Visitors to the web site can then either browse for information by category, or search for it using our custom forms. They can also contact Travel Montana personnel using a customer management system simply called "Feedback" that ensures that they get a response immediately to their inquiry.

     Due to the fact that this web site is so easy to manage and update, and that they have reduced the number of printed materials needed to deliver the same content, Travel Montana has saved MILLIONS of dollars by using the system we built. The fact that nearly anyone that can type can add content to the web site means little or no training costs, and reduced turnover.