Web site focus: www.australia.com

This week: www.australia.com

The Australian Tourist Commission is considered to be one of the most professional tourist boards. Its Web site features more than 10,000 pages of colourful information offering visitors the opportunity to Discover Australia on-line.

Visitors from around the world are welcomed to Australia with the first screen devoted to selecting your country of origin.

The home page then appears, claiming all the information you need to plan and book your holiday is here. The page includes a couple of pictures and an astounding 23 subject links.

Main links are Aussie Adventures, Outback, Cities, Beach/Reef, Nature/Wildlife, Aussie lifestyle and Map.

Numerous other interesting headings include Aussie Club, Red Hot Deals, Photo Gallery, Visitor Facts and Fun Stuff.

As you would expect, there are copious amounts of information on places and things to do in Australia.

Most of this is presented exceptionally well, with plenty of first-rate information plus a few small graphics to whet the appetite.

If looking to see how to get there, the Aussie specialists’ section searches for local agents/operators by postcode. Selecting Bromley, the search produced one local agent, one in Regent Street, plus the ‘national’ Austravel also based in central London. The main thing was it worked, as did the brochure order option which asked for a reasonable amount of information about the desired trip and dates before offering regions to select brochures from.

The site claims to feature some of the hottest travel deals to Australia in its Red Hot Deals section. Content includes special offers, packages and modules and seasonal campaigns, but to get all the information you may need to link to the relevant agent, operator or airline’s site.

In the Choosing your Australian Holiday Experience section, information is offered on adventure, outback, city, beach or wildlife holidays.

The content seems to cater for everyone – from sailing and touring to outback explorations and cultural city attractions.

The depth of information is suitably impressive, displaying detailed information on accommodation, including rates.

We did find that a few sections overlapped considerably, but contained comprehensive information on many interesting subjects such as climate, currency and health.

Multilingual: the site welcomes all nationalities and offers several language options.

Customise option: to make your surfing more personalised you can choose options including the use of frames and even indicate your age bracket.

Photo gallery: they say a picture speaks a thousand words and this section brings Australia’s sights to life.

Fun stuff: to brighten up your computer download an Australia screen saver.

The site is very aesthetically pleasing – with some great pictures and clean looking layouts. Graphics are an essential part of the site and are kept small to minimise response times.

We found the site easy enough to navigate. But with so much information to present the site could be sectioned better to enable visitors to find their subject choice faster – an FAQ section tries to help visitors and a search tool is under development.

We would recommend the map as an excellent starting point if you are looking for destination information and using the travel directory if looking for tourism products, including accommodation, tours, transport and attractions.

Yes – this a most pleasurable site with lots of good information and some excellent photographs.

This is a good reference site for travel agents and operators – all the information is certainly here on places to go and see and things to do, as well as the practical help and advice you may need. However, the site does not offer visitors all the information they need to book their holiday – not on-line – visitors are requested to make their bookings through a travel agent that specialises in Australia.

Most of the following features are available in either Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator. What you will see is a typical Windows-style menu bar (file, edit, view, help). The dropdown menus will enable you to save, print, find and navigate around the Web pages and much more.

The tool bar provides the following features. The back button takes you back to the Web page you last visited. The forward button reverses the direction if you have used the back button. Use refresh or reload if you get an error message or only receive part of the page . Home takes you to the location set as your home page. Search opens your browser’s preferred search engine. Use the stop button to terminate the current instruction.

Favourites or bookmarks display the list of sites you have selected to return to. This is a method of reaching a site or page without having to remember or typing in the actual Web address. Links or what’s related – this searches other pages linked or related to the current Web page displayed in the address or location box.