WEBSITE AS A MARKETING TOOL IN TOURISM : Website Design for Svanen Camping Site

Abstract

The aim of this thesis was to a give little introduction into modern marketing tools in tourism, such as, websites, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Google Plus, and to modify the existing website of Svanen camping, Pietarsaari/ Jakobstad attractively. The Svanen camping is run during the summer by Central Ostrobothnia University of Applied Sciences (COU) since 2004. It is owned by the town of Pietarsaari. The camping is managed by Centria – Research and Development. Jennie Elfving, who is a research and development manager of Centria, commissioned this thesis.

The main objective of this thesis was to build an informative and attractive website for the Svanen camping and update the existing website. This thesis is a practice-based thesis; a web site was designed in three languages, Finnish, Swedish and English. The website was designed in such a way that visitors can get all the information and the overview of Svanen Camping. Visual looks of the website has been focused on and animations and video are inserted to make the website better. The theoretical part of this thesis consists of social media and how the social media marketing is important in the field of tourism, for example, Google Plus, Facebook, YouTube, the uses of websites, planning and designing websites, and the steps taken to the designing of the website.

The website was designed in between three months after collecting all the information needed for the website. The website was developed by using web designing programming such as Dreamweaver, JavaScript, Photoshop, gif animator and Windows Movie Maker. Later the website will be published on the web by Svanen Camping.