As the key marketer and driver of tourism in Gauteng, the Gauteng Tourism Authority (GTA) understands just how crucial it is to understand the Web usage patterns of its clients and to constantly improve both its marketing and its Web site, which is why the organisation has selected the NetTracker Web site analysis suite, supplied by Synergy Computing.
The GTA's mandate is to stimulate, coordinate and facilitate sustainable tourism development and the marketing of the province, in order to create a world-class destination that will attract business tourists and other tourists, benefit local people and contribute to economic growth.
To this end, one of its key public-facing structures is its Web site, which provides users with all the relevant information on the province, from shopping, dining and entertainment facilities, through history, heritage, arts and culture to business facilities and infrastructure and sporting and other events.
According to Synergy Computing Account Manager Ross Weston, many organisations establish a Web presence, but then simply forget about it. "It's one thing to create a Web presence, and quite another to understand how and why clients are using the Web site," he says.
NetTracker allows users to analyse and optimise their online channels by providing a flexible, comprehensive and accurate world-class Web analytics solution.
GTA's eBusiness Manager, Wallace Khumalo, says the authority began using NetTracker in January, in order to generate comprehensive statistics on the Web site's usage.
"Some of the stats that NetTracker provides us with are very important in terms of the GTA's future planning, as we need to be aware of things like the number of visitors to the site, visitors' duration of stay in the province, the nationalities of the people visiting Gauteng and so on," says Khumalo.
"More importantly, it is critical to have this type of information when it comes to issues such as future decision-making and estimations of the performance of the GTA."
According to Synergy's Allen, when it comes to end-users like marketing or service managers, these players need to do more than just measure their Web site's effectiveness through pre-configured reports, so an analysis tool like NetTracker can empower them to manage their Web site's success through investigative Web analysis.
Khumalo points out that for an organisation that relies quite heavily on statistics, NetTracker makes life easy for the GTA on an operational level, as it makes the accessing of such stats far quicker and easier than before the adoption of the suite.
"The other major difference NetTracker has made to the way the GTA works, in terms of simplicity, is that server-based stats are more effective than having to tag each page, which is exactly what we were doing before this implementation."
According to Allen, an effective Internet presence can make a significant difference to how clients perceive the companies with which they interact.
"The dot-com meltdown has already taught us that while a Web site is a critical channel for doing business, it has to be properly structured and designed to deliver value to the customer as well as to the business. NetTracker plays an important role in allowing companies to achieve this," he says.
Concludes Khumalo: "Thanks to NetTracker, GTA is better able to analyse Web patterns and trends, and has access to the type of statistics that are crucial in helping the authority towards its long-term vision, that of being the strategic leader of tourism in the province."
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