Photos from SecondLife
Maldives has deep blue seas, turquoise reefs, white sandy beaches and palm trees. People have long spent their days languishing in the very essence of idyll living. While it is the perfect place to sit on a beach and watch a sunset, it is also a geographical marvel, knowing that there are thousands of fish swimming around the vivid corals.
I will be evaluating the website based on criterias such as coverage, purpose, authority and accuracy of the source.
An overview of coverage can be found at the sidebar.
They include:
Maldives Overview (Brief introduction of Maldives)
Places in Maldives (Addu Atoll, Male’ and Southern Atolls)
When to go & weather (December to April; consistent at around 30°C)
Getting there & around (Travel documents, Travel by Sea, Travel by Air)
Practical information (Costs and Currency)
History (History of Maldives)
Work & study (Language Spoken and Courses)
Tips & articles (Relevant Articles)
Hotels (Accommodations)
Forum (Platform for Sharing Opinions)
There are also a section of the things to do in Maldives, an image gallery for pictures that are taken at Maldives and fast facts about Maldives.
The comprehensiveness of the website can be determined by the amount of information it provides. Take for example "Getting there & away", it tells users the travel documents to bring such as passports and air tickets.
(Lengthy text ahead, may not be suitable for reading purposes)
If visitors travel by yacht, there are a few things to take note according to the website. It warns visitors to take note of these few things: reefs can make it a hazardous area, high fees for cruising permits and restrictions on where yacht can go. There is only one place for servicing yacht in a professional way. If visitors were to stop at Male, they must arrive before dark and call the coastguard on channel 16 and carefully follow their instructions on where to anchor. A charge will be imposed of about US$175 for a two-week stay and the cost of a cruising permit increases along with the length of stay. Customs, port and inspection charges increase with the size of the boat. Before leaving Maldivial waters, visitors are reminded to "clear out" at Male.
Above is a summarised version of the lengthy textual information it provides just to inform potential travellers on what to expect when they are travelling by a yacht in Maldives. Taking that as an example, it clearly illustrate the comprehensiveness and gives users an idea of the quality of information that they can expect for the other sections of the website.
"Lonely Planet have built a nice little universe dedicated entirely to travel and travellers. Each month over five million travellers visit LonelyPlanet.com and getting hardcore about travel. To dream about it, plan it, book it and talk about it. They come to shop, to read features, to enter competitions, to watch videos. They come to find a job, share advice, read reviews."
Quoted from their webpage, it pretty much explains the purpose that this website serve. Intended audience will primarily be for potential travellers who wished to do research on the destination beforehand.
Lonely Planet can be considered as a one-stop platform to get the necessary documents done before going on a trip. To start things off, there is a listing of top recommendations of activities in Maldives. It can help to stimulate interest among visitors; since these activities are classified as top recommendations, visitors may consider in participating in such activites as well.
Users are not required to navigate away from the webpage to find flights. Within the same page, visitors can source for the best deals while using the flight finder service powered by Kayak. Kayak is a tech company focused on making online travel better and confounders of top travel agencies such as Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz.
They can even take care of their travel insurance within the same webpage. They can get a quote for the insurance powered by worldnomads.com. There are blogs on Maldives to increase the scope of information provided from different perspectives. There are also options available for users to view this webpage in other languages.
The website contains more information presented in text. There could be more pictures and videos instead to substantiate the appeal of the destination as the image gallery consists of only 10 images.
Links are available to refer users to similar articles within the website for more information. However, there are no links to other sources that can help to improve on its coverage. There is only limited information users can get from this website, it causes inconvenience as there are no hyperlinks that lead users to other similar webpages.
Before visiting Maldives, potential travellers may want to do more background research on the country. Therefore, it is important to ensure that information provided are reliable to serve as a credible reference. The hardcopy travel magazine recently won awards and it substantiates their authority of information provided. It is a proof and recognition of their excellent service quality.
I am personally motivated by their breathtaking scenery; it provides me with a sense of calm and tranquility even just by looking at the images. I can also get the rare opportunity to participate in water activities such as diving in clear waters and engage in watersports. After a long day of enjoyment, it is time for me to unwind at the beautiful sandy beach while admiring the scenery.
I can also take part in the cultural aspects of tourism in Maldives and experience the lifestyle of the locals, integrating with the society and engaging in local activities such as fishing and interacting with the locals. I can also take my time to visit an authentic Maldivian spa, where they use traditional healing methods passed down by hakeembe (healing experts).
My personal opinion on the SecondLife is that it is a good 3D virtual software that is free and the contents are updated regularly. It provides the general overview of how Maldives looks like. It covers intricate details of certain parts of the destination, such as the interio of the resort as shown in the pictures earlier.
However, I would also like to highlight some drawbacks of using SecondLife. Users are required to download the SL viewer in order to run SecondLife and there are multiple system requirements in order to run this program. It lags too often, every movement is slow and it cannot respond real time. I would also like to emphasise that Secondlife covers only a single aspect of the destination, that is the visual aspect.
Viewing the scenery in SecondLife is not as realistic as I first thought, it just looks like another other ordinary beach and resort. There is only limited information of the destination as it did not cover activities that the destination can offer or the culture of its people. In my honest opinion, it does not really help users to visualise how the actual destination looks like.
As for multimedia websites, there are lesser software requirements and are generally more convenient as information is just a click away. There is also an image gallery of the actual destination that aids users to visualise how the destination actually looks like. The travel forum is one crucial differentiating factor from SecondLife; it contains feedbacks from people who actually went to the location and giving the review of the destination. People who went there can share their travel experiences; is it worth the visit, what they can expect, the people and scenery.
Works cited:
Maldives - Always Natural. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.visitmaldives.com/en/the-maldives/country-at-a-glance
Lonely Planet - Maldives. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.lonelyplanet.com/maldives
No comments:
Post a Comment