Revealing India’s best kept secret.
Odisha Tourism enhances the state’s tourism appeal and stakeholder experience through an immersive website developed using Adobe Experience Manager.
Established
1979
Department of Tourism, Government of Odisha
Employees: 61
Headquarter: Bhubaneswar, Odisha
odishatourism.gov.in
117%
Rise in unique website visitors
Objectives
Create a more structured digital presence and adopt digital lead management tools
Achieve uniform positioning and a unique digital identity for the Odisha Tourism brand
Offer consistent and comprehensive experiences for all stakeholders on a single platform
Increase amount of current, relevant, and engaging content to influence user purchase
Results
117% rise in unique visitors on the revamped Odisha Tourism website
255% increase in average time on page from 1.5 minutes to 5 minutes, driven by page-specific visitor analytics
Exponentially improved speed and responsiveness across both web and mobile platforms
Spike in attention from international travel community, building the Odisha brand across the globe
“To emphasize this brand positioning and influence explorers to know Odisha more intimately, we conceptualized a one stop digital platform that could assist the explorer in every stage of his journey. Using Adobe Experience Manager and its tools, we could transform our intuitive interventions into a performance driven integrated marketing campaign.”
Vishal Kumar Dev
Commissioner-cum-Secretary, Department of Tourism, Govt. of Odisha
The moments that matter
The traveler today seeks a journey and not just a destination. Connecting with the story of a place takes precedence over just checking off a location on a bucket list. Travel becomes a way of discovering new cultural and natural landscapes, understanding the unfamiliar ways of life and even as a means of self-discovery. This contemporary thinking is fueling the travel and tourism sector all over the world. With a promise of a surprise at every corner, Odisha seems best poised to emerge as one of the most intriguing tourist destinations on the planet.
Located on the eastern coast of India, Odisha is a treasure trove of rich culture, thriving industry, stunning sights, and incredible architecture. Through massive infrastructure upgrade and promotion of longer itineraries such as spiritual walks, temple tours and beach festivals, the state is committed to building Puri as a World Heritage City. Special focus on maintenance of Buddhist sites and community participation in ecotourism have opened up multiple avenues for tourism in Odisha. Major sporting events such as the Commonwealth Table Tennis Championship 2019, Men’s Hockey World Cup 2018, and Asian Athletics Championship 2017 have established the state as a venue for sporting extravaganza.
“The state always had the potential to be recognized as a globally preferred destination for an eclectic mix of travelers,” says Vishal Kumar Dev, Commissioner-cum-Secretary, Department of Tourism, Govt. of Odisha. “However, Odisha was synonymous with religious tourism, with the Jagannath culture in Puri acting as the primary magnet for tourist influx. This unidimensional perception had to be broken and the diversity in Odisha’s tourism potential had to be showcased to the world. Here we knew that a strong digital presence and robust digital lead management could have a substantial impact on footfall.
“The traction attained by sports tourism in Odisha in the 2018 Men's Hockey World Cup opened the world’s eyes to the diversity of experiences that Odisha has to offer,” Vishal Dev continues. “Capitalizing on the ‘unknown about Odisha’ encompassing heritage, wildlife, culture and arts, we adopted the brand of ‘India's Best Kept Secret’ for tourism. To emphasize this brand positioning and influence explorers to know Odisha more intimately, we conceptualized a one stop digital platform that could assist the explorer in every stage of his journey. Using Adobe Experience Manager and its tools, we could transform our intuitive interventions into a performance driven integrated marketing campaign.”
Unifying the efforts behind a new and enhanced image
Odisha Tourism sought to establish the image of Odisha as one of the most preferred tourist destinations in the country. Its goal was to ensure the discovery of the depth and breadth of what ‘India’s best kept secret had to offer, from sustainable tourism and rich wildlife to heritage sites and virgin destinations. Odisha Tourism turned to technology to provide immersive experiences for potential visitors and unify stakeholders on a single platform.
The primary goal was to create a strong digital brand for Odisha. It was also important for the platform to offer end-to-end capabilities from discovery and exploration to planning, booking, and service provider feedback. This need made it imperative to find a strategic technology partner with a proven track record in the travel domain and the capabilities to drive a world-class user experience across channels.
Speaking about decision to work with Adobe, Vishal Dev said, “The department had read about success stories and case studies of different implementation of digital campaigns and found examples like Australia.com in the tourism domain. The decision to opt for Adobe was finalized on the basis of such pioneering uses of Adobe Experience Cloud in the tourism sector.
“Personalizing user experiences based on Adobe Analytics has started showing tangible results in driving user engagement and upstream conversions.”
Priyadarshi Nanu Pany
CEO, CSM Technologies Pvt. Ltd
Structured content bank for ease of use
Odisha Tourism deployed the power of Adobe Experience Manager to build a one-stop solution for tourists, service providers, and its officials. The first step was to revamp the tourist experience, offering virtual tourism through captivating, relevant, and targeted content. Previously, creating content and aggregating content from social media was challenging since assets were stored in various unstructured data sources. Odisha Tourism developed a structured and indexed content repository of over 1TB of data, accumulated over five years, by using the CMS and DAM capabilities of Adobe Experience Manager.
Publishing was now easier with a content bank categorized by tourist attractions and events, and even professionally created and user-generated content. Given the importance of convenience to conversion, the website enabled interested audiences to discover, plan, book, and shop on a single portal. Additionally, two microsites – dot.odishatourism.gov.in for use by the department and shop.odishatourism.gov.in, a pilot ecommerce platform for artisanal products - are hosted within the larger domain.
“As the implementing partners for the Odisha Tourism website, we studied user personas and were looking for a platform that could be leveraged to create an immersive digital tourism experience for such variety of users,” says Priyadarshi Nanu Pany, CEO, CSM Technologies Pvt. Ltd. “We chose Adobe Experience Cloud for this purpose and skilled our functional and technical teams to unlock its full potential. Multimedia management on Adobe helped us to manage and optimally use the content inventory we had created for Odisha Tourism. Personalizing user experiences based on Adobe Analytics has started showing tangible results in driving user engagement and upstream conversions.”
Maximizing stakeholder engagement and participation
The digital initiative was not assumed to be an effort at digital amplification as a unilateral communication strategy, but a dynamic platform that would enable stakeholders (hoteliers, tour operators, and others) to contribute, collaborate, publish and promote, analyze and thereby converge the supply-side ecosystem onto a one-stop integrate discover-plan-book-travel-avail portal.
As an aggregation platform, the website allows local tourism service providers to register themselves and publish details of their services like tour packages and deals. The workflow management feature in Adobe Experience Manager allowed Odisha Tourism approvals to review and approve service provider content submitted to the website, greatly reducing time to publish.
“Adobe helped us create a digital asset repository that enhanced team efficiency and helped build brand engagement through dynamic content,” says Vishal Dev. “The increased engagement was testament to the power of the platform.”
Targeting better conversions
Odisha Tourism outlined three imperatives to promote travel in the state – upgrading ecotourism, building Puri as a world heritage city, and reviving the Buddhist Circuit. Each of these goals would be served by different audiences, making targeting crucial to the digital strategy. After mapping traveler personas to website features, Odisha Tourism used Adobe Target to personalize user experiences through geo-targeting, account/profile-based targeting, and behavioral targeting.
For instance, while the Buddhist Circuit was promoted to travelers from South East Asian countries like Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia, Ayurveda and Wellness tours were promoted to those from Australia. Profile based targeting and behavioral targeting features are deployed to personalize content based on user preferences and real-time actions, with user-persona based A/B testing for continuous optimization. The personalized user experience had an immediate positive impact on average time spent by a user on the website and percentage of international visitors on the website.
“We envisioned our website as the fundamental tool through which the campaign to reveal India's Best Kept Secret to the world could also be customized and hyper-personalized to each visitor's mind map. Using Adobe Experience Manager, we could achieve this vision comprehensively.”
Vishal Kumar Dev
Commissioner-cum-Secretary, Department of Tourism, Govt. of Odisha
Spreading the secret
With the help of Adobe, Odisha Tourism has built a stunning travel portal that facilitates its three-pronged approach of information discovery, planning tools, and purchase (booking and ecommerce). Now, supported by a powerful digital brand, thriving UGC pipeline, and measurable ROI at every step, Odisha Tourism is well on its way to positioning the state as a travel destination of choice, one that’s no longer a secret.
"We envisioned our website as the fundamental tool through which the campaign to reveal India's Best Kept Secret to the world could also be customized and hyper-personalized to each visitor's mind map.
Using Adobe Experience Manager, we could achieve this vision comprehensively," says Vishal Dev.
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