Failte Ireland Releases

Discover Ireland Named Website of the Year 2011 by Leading Web Provider

Fáilte Ireland’s Discover Ireland website has been chosen as Site of the Year 2011 award winner, by Kentico Software, one of the world’s leading web content management system providers.  The Discover Ireland website was announced as global winner out of nearly 200 entries.

The overarching challenge for the discoverireland.ie redesign project, undertaken in 2011, was to incorporate a system with greater functionality and flexibility, a range of workflows to allow for various levels of content editors, and incorporation of third party web services whilst creating a clean but aesthetically pleasing user interface, adhering to strict brand guidelines.

Orla Carroll, Fáilte Ireland’s Head of Marketing and eBusiness said:

“We are delighted that discoverireland.ie has been recognised as best-in-class among the 12,000 websites that operate using Kentico world-wide.  The hard work does not stop here though, as the web is constantly evolving and we are constantly researching and implementing improvements to the user experience on discoverireland.ie and our other websites.”

Advanced functionalities of the website include: drag-and-drop; in-context editing; a WYSIWYG editor; social media connectivity with Facebook and Twitter; wide use of native web parts; and bespoke web-parts and widgets, in particular tied into the Fáilte Ireland Tourism Content System (TCS).

TCS stores in excess of 15,000 tourist items, including accommodation, activities, attractions and events. The content is geocoded, which allowed widgets to be developed for displaying walking routes, tourist item locations, and plotted search results. A custom search widget was also developed, allowing content customisation and multi-level filtering.

Eva Palbuchtova, Marketing Specialist at Kentico Software, commented:

“Not only exciting graphics and a fantastic user experience make the Discover Ireland website unique and compelling. It also provides advanced features which help visitors better plan their trips. I can clearly see why Discover Ireland is the main source of information for organising a holiday in Ireland.”

Rick McKee, Managing Director at Tibus, the website’s developer, said:  “Tibus is delighted that Discoverireland.ie has been recognised as Global Winner of Kentico Site of the Year 2011.  This site is the culmination of a lot of hard work by the teams in Tibus and Fáilte Ireland.”