Category: Marketing

MySwitzerland.com project

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Intro

MySwitzerland.com is tailored to the needs of visitors and divided into different key segments. Thanks to the market-specific features of the website, it is possible to respond quickly to the different market requirements. With the help of the latest technologies, the diversity and beauty of Switzerland is shown, even to the Swiss people themselves, and access to information is greatly simplified. The 360-degree concept for online content draws visitors to the website. Plus the fact that everything is implemented in an accessible manner.

Objectives & target groups

Primary role: to attract potential new foreign and domestic visitors to Switzerland as a travel, holiday and business destination (Note: focus should not be on selling offers! The federal government states that Switzerland Tourism is not permitted to carry out direct sales). Percentage of new visitors to MySwitzerland.com: 66%, percentage of returning visitors: 34%. Top 5 foreign markets: Germany, North America, China, UK, Benelux. Age: from 35 to 70, focus on 40+. Key visitor segments: Nature Lover, Snow Sports & Outdoor Enthusiast, Family Traveller, Attractions Tourer, Culture Traveller & City Breaker. You can find further information in our strategy and planning document.

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Focus: Inspiration and planning

Within the customer buying cycle, the main focus of MySwitzerland.com is on guiding the visitor through the inspiration phase (dream, decide). For Swiss visitors who already know Switzerland very well, planning content is also very relevant. If a visitor decides to make a booking directly, MySwitzerland.com links to external booking sites (Switzerland Tourism is not permitted to carry out sales itself). The content shared by visitors during the ‘Sharing’ phase is also used for inspiration at various points within the site.

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22 markets, 14 languages

The website is prepared in 14 languages, including right-to-left (RTL) languages such as Arabic. The content can be adapted and output on a market-specific basis, for example to differentiate between regional dialects. The same content page can be designed differently by the editors to create market-specific versions. Over 50,000 content pages offer endless opportunities to immerse yourself in Swiss culture and plan a holiday in Switzerland. Try our Chinese site (click here)!

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Central destination hub

Travel always takes place with a destination in mind or in the vicinity of a destination. This 360-degree model was therefore used on the website. In order to offer visitors an experience that is as uninterrupted as possible, most of the content is mapped to locations and assigned to a destination. Regardless of how the visitor accesses the information (a search engine, navigation, social media, etc.), they can find further information about the destination in addition to the main information. If this information is still not sufficient, the visitor can access specific content for the destination using the link at the bottom of the page. On the destination page, visitors can explore the individual categories for the destination such as experiences, accommodation, offers and events.

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Map of Switzerland

A 360-degree map solution showing the diversity of Switzerland. Based on the initial selection in the map, additional searches of the surroundings can be carried out and displayed (using the ‘Search the surroundings’ function). There is also an ‘Around Me’ that focuses on the current location. Multiple map layers can be selected. SwissTopo (Switzerland's national topography) was just one of the programs integrated into Google Maps. Thanks to a connection to the Google Places API, a text search brings up not only the content from Switzerland Tourism, but also all streets and locations. The application was developed using Vue.js with a firm focus on maintenance-free UI performance and simple operation.

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Inspirational calendar

The diversity and beauty of Switzerland presented in 48 interactive and inspirational videos in the form of an annual calendar. A complete stand-alone, responsive solution was implemented for this purpose (incl. virtual reality. https://vr.myswitzerland.com -> optimised for Oculus Go). The calendar is fully functional, even on a smartphone, and also features an ‘explorer’ mode which uses the smartphone’s motion sensor. The rapid global transmission of the videos was ensured with the help of CDNs and various front-end, back-end and video performance optimisations. To ensure visitors get more added value out of the videos, floating and clickable meta-information was added as an overlay.

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Digital branding & visual emotion

To ensure communicative performance, the complex textual and visual content is structured using a module-based and atomic design system that emulates the overall design concept at every level. A library documents these modules and defines how they are used conceptually for all applications. This library therefore forms the basis for a uniform, recognisable and consistent brand experience. Clever transitions and micro-interactions also guide visitors through the entire MySwitzerland.com site.

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Search engine optimisation

From the very start of the project, various SEO measures were planned for the go-live. Automated mapping of the old URL structure to the new URL structure took place for this purpose. This was only possible with the help of data migration and the previous page IDs. Configuration options were developed for the finder/filter pages, which enabled the editor to replace the previous parameters with new parameters. Thanks to these measures, approximately 90% of the old URLs could be intercepted by the new website after the go-live. Search indexing on Google has already returned to normal two months after the go-live.

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Access for all: Accessibility

The website was technically upgraded and relaunched in accordance with the WCAG 2.0 AA Guidelines. The website can only be operated using the keyboard and is optimised for screen readers. The innovative elements that offer additional access to the content (e.g. the inspirational calendar on the homepage or the global map solution) were also fully compliant. In Switzerland, but possibly even in the rest of Europe, there is no other website that manages to bridge the gap between emotionality and accessibility so successfully.

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