Wales Settlements Project & WikiWales: Feasibility Report

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In a Wales tourism setting, the Wales Settlements Project & WikiWales is a perfect vehicle for piloting the application of semantic web technology, cloud computing, and wiki software for knowledge management and rich content creation; all with the aim of enhancing the online experience of potential visitors to Wales and their in-trip use of mobile devices for a richer, more playful experience. It advocates a substantial step change in the degree of open data sharing by public and third sector stewards of rich content on Wales, to enable private sector players to mix and match it with commercial data, to monetise it, and thus achieve economic outcomes for the common good and Wales’ tourism economy.

It recognises that commercial activity of this nature is not the prevail of public sector bodies whose foci should be on managing rather than marketing physical assets that give rise to content. It conjectures that all marketing must lead to a sale if economic outcomes are to be realised and that, in general, the public sector has neither the skill sets nor products in its gift to deliver these transactions.

Even more apposite is the study’s coincidence with rulings anticipated from the European Commission on State aid, and the Office of Fair Trading on alleged anti-competitive activity by online travel agents, both of which are likely to see public sector withdrawal from tourism consumer marketing to concentrate its resources instead on tourism management to help enhance the overall visit experience. Tourism management is considered by experts to be best and most ligitimate marketing tool available to the public sector.

Leaving aside the technical issues covered exhaustively in my Business Plan Development Report dated December 2011, the Wales Settlements Project & WikiWales, based on cluster marketing principles, also ushers in the concept of micro-destination marketing: the notion that all communities have something to offer visitors no matter how obscure. Given the rich content that leads to its revelation, it adds to an exceptionally long keyphrase marketing tail of niche interests in line with the three Cs of internet marketing: Community, Content, Commerce.

Multiplied by the 3,079 settlements in the Convergence programme area and magnified through the Welsh language, it will give readers of my earlier report and this new feasibilty report an immense sense of what’s in store.

Phil Evans
Managing Director
Location Wales Online Limited
14th September 2012