Technology Tips

5 Ways to Take Advantage of the New TravelWisconsin.com 

There may not be any written contracts or stock options, but the Wisconsin Department of Tourism and its group of dedicated Extranet partners are definitely in business together when it comes to making TravelWisconsin.com the best state travel planning site in the country.  A clean design makeover and a whole lot of improved features and functionality came with the launch of the new TravelWisconsin.com in January, as did a few new ways for Extranet partners to help online travel planners find their destinations and activities. 

To get started, we encourage you to contact your Extranet partner if you are not listed or want to update your information. 

Read on for our five tips that Extranet Partners can use to take advantage of the new CMS (Content Management System):

Upload Your Photos. Visually, there isn't a more significant change from the Extranet to the CMS than the addition of photo galleries for travel items. Bland detail pages will soon be a thing of the past as more partners take advantage of this new feature to easily upload images of attractions, accommodations and more onto TravelWisconsin.com. To see how these photo galleries appear on the site, take a look at this example. 

Your New Mantra: It's All About Activities. Whether travelers have visited Wisconsin since they were young, or are discovering the state for the first time, they all share one common trait: they know what they love to do. So, we built the site around those experiences, and made categorizing travel items and events the first step in the streamlined CMS data entry process. Entering your information accurately will help travel planners find everything related to their favorite activity in one place on TravelWisconsin.com, and an easy planning experience can go a long way toward a great vacation experience - and repeat visits down the road. While the new categories and subcategories may seem just different enough from the old system to be confusing, we've made available a handy cheat-sheet to help you easily determine what goes where. Download it and other CMS user guides here. 

New Attributes Can Contribute to Your Success. When building the new TravelWisconsin.com, we took a fresh look at the data we were capturing on all the activities available in the state. As a result, there are new opportunities to take credit for your area attractions' great attributes, including Travel Green Wisconsin Certification. We took as much data from the old system as we could, but with the new options in place (did we mention photo galleries?), it's worth a look to see if your attractions are represented accurately. Old rules still apply, so please check only what DOES apply to your travel items and events. On TravelWisconsin.com, we've made it easier than ever for travelers to sort and filter their options by these attributes, so you can be sure that all your hard work will get noticed where it matters most.

Take a Test Drive. One of the more frustrating aspects of the Extranet system was going through 16 screens of data entry and STILL not knowing how everything you entered was going to look when a traveler saw it online. That's no longer the case. After going through the three-or-four step process of adding or editing an item in the new CMS, you can get a preview of just how that item will look on the site - including your photo galleries and integrated map. After previewing, you have the option to go back and change anything that you'd like or add anything you missed allowing you to submit items with the confidence that everything is in its place.

Get Help When You Need It. The new CMS is, well, new to us, too, but we're working in and with it daily to make it the best it can be. As always, our dedicated Database Content Coordinator, Linda Anderson-Drogsvold, is there to help answer your questions, troubleshoot problems, and offer online training session for one or many partners at a time. To set up an online training session with Linda, contact her by email or by phone at 608-261-8212.