The PCB promotes Prague as a conference destination
Every major European city has its own convention bureau, which seeks to attract organisers of summits and conferences. A key element for all of them is helping organisers secure a suitable conference centre, catering, a hotel and, last but not least, a supporting programme for speakers and guests.
The PCB works mainly with rational arguments (price, quality, hotel capacity, star rating), as well as emotional appeal. After all, it is still people who make the choices, and they are easily swayed by their feelings. But let’s face it, no one can resist a photo of Prague at sunset, no matter how many times you’ve seen Prague 😉
Compare the original and new versions; you can find the website at pragueconvention.cz.
How the Prague Convention Bureau itself assesses the collaboration:
No plan, no action
Like any project, this one began with an initial study. Without it, the final design would probably make no sense at all. In the tourism sector, particularly at the intersection of B2B and B2C, you need to have a thorough understanding of both the target audience and the business process as a whole. This enables us to offer users a meaningful solution.
The PCB receives enquiries most often through referrals or via web forms.
“We therefore strive to offer users the best possible information service and simplify the conversion process for them. It takes patience; the customer decision-making process is long. Events are planned well in advance. Furthermore, companies typically choose from an average of four European cities where a conference can be held,” adds our consultant Daniel.
Initial study: 4 target groups and keyword analysis in 7 languages
As part of our analysis, we defined 4 target groups that the new website must reach. But the challenges don’t end there. PCB has no competition in the Czech Republic, but it does in cities such as Frankfurt, Vienna, Paris or Budapest. We therefore had to extend all our analyses to a European scale.
We ultimately prepared the keyword analysis for 7 countries. The result of the entire process was the identification of target markets.
From a marketing perspective, Belgium and France are among the most interesting markets, as they have the lowest cost per click for relevant keywords.
Who’s tired of London?!
A competitive analysis is always part of the initial study. In this case,
we analysed the convention bureaux in Paris, Vienna, Berlin and London. As the classic saying goes: “He who is tired of London is tired of life
.” And this applies to the web too.
Generally speaking, all cities pay attention to visual appeal, even if usability sometimes suffers for the sake of aesthetics. Fortunately for us, Prague is photogenic enough.
Thanks to our knowledge of the competition, we can design a website that stands out and captures attention. Our UX designer Petr was in charge of the competitive analysis. He focused primarily on elements that work for others, as well as those where others fall short.
Generally, there is no fixed menu; the venue finder is located in an unusual place or forces you to enter the same parameters several times. They also often struggle with the volume of information they want to convey to users. The competition can be outdone quite easily – whether in technical SEO parameters or UX design.
UX conundrum: quantity of information vs. clarity
This age-old dilemma is faced by convention bureaux across Europe: they need to present as much information as possible about hotels and conference centres, in the clearest way possible. This is precisely the information that event organisers need most. That is why, right from the homepage, we direct users to the ‘venue finder’, where they can find a list of all partner services.
We chose the list as the
optimal compromise between essential information and clarity
. Based on an analysis of the target group, we selected the following data for the list: number of conference rooms, accommodation capacity and star rating.
The programmers had their work cut out for them too. The Prague Convention Bureau uses a CRM system from an American supplier
. Integrating it with the website proved a bit of a challenge and caused a few sleepless nights.
