Jersey.com - new site removed

Last Thursday, ten days after it went live, Jersey Tourism took the decision to remove the disastrous new jersey.com website and revert back to the old site. Today, Tourism's chief David de Carteret issued the following statement to the industry:

"I am writing to provide you with an update on the status of jersey.com following some difficulties which we have been experiencing in moving to the new site. The current position is that we are maintaining the old site whilst further work is being undertaken to ensure the quality and functionality of the new. When we are totally confident in all operational aspects, the new site will be introduced.

Unfortunately the new site still has too many bugs to risk live operation during a busy period and with the new television campaign being launched on Boxing Day it is essential that we delay to ensure that the booking engines and links to commercial sites are operational. We very much regret having had to make this decision particularly after the fanfare of the launch of the new site in November .

We are confident that the problems can be resolved and that the new site will be introduced within the next few weeks."

First of all - some credit is due to David and his team for biting the bullet and recognising the need to put the consumer first. However in due course there will need to be a full enquiry into the handling of the project which has clearly been poorly managed right from the initial decision to award the project to a London agency. At least we can be certain that visitors to jersey.com will be able to see the information they need.

Jersey.com - uninspiring & bland. £250,000 of taxpayers' money for this?!

I promised not to give an immediate reaction to the new jersey.com website, when it finally went live last Monday. This was in order to give the developers a chance to get all the new content loaded and sort out any major bugs etc.

It’s now been live for over a week and the time has come to pass judgement. In every respect the new site is a major disappointment. It is uninspiring, the indexation is confusing and illogical and in some respects the content seems completely amateurish. Here are just a few issues:

1. Imagery -where are all the fabulous images of Jersey that will inspire visitors to book? The size of the images on the site is far too small and completely uninspiring. Compare this with the VisitWales site – which uses spectacular imagery throughout the site and just makes you want to be there.


2. Maps – goodness knows who has supplied these. They are dreadful! Cramped and confused, missing huge amounts of data and poorly laid out (see image above). Yuk! Yahoo Maps provide a clear mapping service of Jersey - why not partner with them?


3. Restaurants – just a rehash of the old site’s directory. And the first restaurant on the list? No, not a lovely local restaurant serving Genuine Jersey produce, but ‘A Taste of India’!


4. Getting to Jersey – I want to fly on a scheduled flight from London Gatwick and enter the details into the search box. What do I get? Not just a list of the airlines, but a list of tour operators as well, which is totally confusing. Look at the flight search box in this Blog & provided by Skyscanner - it's a far more effective marketing tool and cost nothing!

I could go on. The worst part of this whole business is that the website cost £250,000 of valuable Tourism Development Funds. I simply cannot believe that this poorly designed site has cost that much, with rehashed content from the old site and a design that does nothing to inspire & attract potential visitors. How must the local agencies, which were overlooked for the project, be feeling now? They would have done a much better job, for a quarter of the price.

Jersey.com is our industry's most important marketing tool and according to Tourism Director, David de Carteret at the recent industry conference - 'is at the heart of everything we do'. In my view the new website is a major disappointment in both design and construction and someone should take the rap for wasting so much public money.

Has anyone got anything good to say about it? If so, let’s hear from you….

The future's bright....the future's orange!

It's been widely anticipated and much hoped for, but today it's confirmed. Easyjet are to start flying to Jersey in 2008.

Easyjet is Europe's leading low-fares airline and along with Ryanair dominate the market. For almost a decade the island has been wishing that it could be in a position to attract one of the 'big two' to fly to the island. Now that wish has come true and from March next year the famous orange livery will be touching down in Jersey.

Flights from Liverpool, (which has not previously been served by a scheduled airline) commence in March and from London Luton a month later. The Luton route will be operated by an Airbus 319 (similar to that operated by BMI on Heathrow) and Liverpool by a 737-300. The combined capacity is huge - 200,000 extra seats in the first year. Given how successful Thomsonfly were on Luton, Easyjet should have no problems taking up where they left off, whilst Liverpool provides access to a whole new market in the North West and North Wales.

Not surprisingly Philip Ozouf, Alan Maclean & Julian Green are cock-a-hoop. Of course, attracting Easyjet will not have come cheap & more incentive deals will have been struck to secure the routes, but the airline would not have agreed to start flying to Jersey unless they believed there was a strong commercial case for doing so.

Right now the key to achieving continued growth in our industry is having as much access as possible. The arrival of Easyjet is a terrific fillip to us all.