Spain Tourism Minister José Manuel Soria Unveils New Version of Official Website

Updated site responds to the needs of today’s digital tourist

• www.spain.info  now a more social, interactive and intuitive  tool featuring smoother navigation and a design making it easier to get to know well-known attractions in our country.

• www.spain.info  now offers tourists the chance to book everything needed for a trip to Spain, including transportation and lodging.

• www.spain.info  becomes a sales channel for Spanish tourism providers; final purchases take place through each service provider’s website.

06-26-13 Minister of Industry, Energy and Tourism Jose Manuel Soria yesterday presented to the tourism sector the new version of the official tourism site of Spain, www.spain.info , with which it responds to the needs of the digital tourist and introduces, for the first time, full-range marketing of the Spanish tourism product.

Tourists have changed the way they proceed when planning their trips; today, they first draw on the experiences of other travelers by seeking information, checking other travelers’ reviews and then booking the trip, during which he shares his expertise with others through social networking.

According to EGATUR, of the total number of international tourists who visited Spain in 2012, six out of ten looked online for information before their trip; 59% booked a service, and 56% paid through Internet.

These data show how the digital tourist behaves, which has led to the need for a new version of the official tourism site of Spain, www.spain.info , whose goal is to answer all these needs, becoming an indispensable tool in the entire life cycle of the travel arrangements.

The new version of spain.info aligns with the objectives set in the Strategic Marketing Turespaña: to enhance the promotion of tourism “products” with the goal of diversifying tourism in Spain, ranging from the traditional sun and beach, culture, nature, gastronomy, nature, business and so on, thereby making it less seasonally oriented and creating more year-‘round demand.

The aim of the new spain.info portal is twofold: on one hand, the desire to improve the tourist experience by being more inspirational, social, and interactive, with a much easier and intuitive navigation and a design which features visual content, encouraging visitors to get to know more attractions in our country.

Moreover, for the first time, visitors can access reservation tools for everything you need for your trip to Spain, from transportation to accommodations, to enjoy services at the destination, such as tickets to a show or museum. In this way, tourists can complete the life cycle of the trip-planning process without leaving spain.info.

Merchandising

The private sector is provided with a new sales channel with this new version of the portal, as the final purchase always takes place on the website of the service provider.

The tourist can book airline, train and hotel reservations through spain.info, with a comparison tool for each product option, selected on the grounds that it is the most transparent and which also provides the greatest number of tourist accommodations (some 20,000).

The user, after entering the search criteria, yields a result, which have capacities from online travel agencies, hotel chains, websites and hotel websites through their booking engines. In this manner, spain.info accommodates all those establishments which market their property online.

Regarding the flight comparison tool, note that results are displayed from more than 800 airlines offering a combination of flights to Spain and availability online, through over 400 channels comprising travel agents, airlines and low-cost airlines..

In the coming months, spain.info plans to incorporate complementary products (ticket-booking for museums and shows, tourist cards, tourist buses and restaurant reservations).

It is also expected that by the end of the year, tourist experiences which have the cooperation of agencies  offering trips taken with online availability will also be marketed on the site.

Spain.info is available in eighteen languages ​​and has 25 local versions customized for both traditional source markets as well as for emerging markets (Brazil, Russia, India and China).

New Features

The tourist is the true star of the portal, which has created a section based on segmentation and where the user selects their profile (young, family, senior, LGBT) and reasons for his or her trip to Spain (nature, sports, beach, business...); the site then offers recommendations for travel based on these preferences.

Another novelty of the portal is the navigation by geography axis.

From the "Where To?" Provides the tourist the possibility to locate information or tourist resort destination with maps.

Sharing Experiences

Social networks are present throughout the site, allowing users to share the experience of their trip to Spain, post comments, photos and videos of their stay in our country which serve as inspiration for other travelers. This is possible through the "Sharing Experiences" feature.

Finally, it bears emphasizing that www.spain.info is a dynamic site which will constantly evolve,  in step with the changing needs of the tourist and with the tourism industry’s innovations and newest proposals.

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About the Tourist Office of Spain in Chicago

The TOS  Chicago is one of 33 worldwide offices of TURESPAÑA, Spain´s government tourism promotion authority based in Madrid, responsible for promoting Spain as a tourism destination to travel trade, press and consumers in the Midwest USA market.

To learn more about the TOS Chicago’s services and activities, visit our Spain Virtual Event Center www.spainvirtualcenter.com

Patricia Winn

Press and Public Relations Manager

Tourist Office of Spain in Chicago

Email: patricia.wood@tourspain.es

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