Scope of Work
Website:
The contractor must follow responsive web design best practices to develop and build a website with design elements including font styles, formats and graphics to be used with the URL; beyondthebigapple.com. The website landing page will include clickable itineraries and/or pdf links to be directed to a secondary page detailing itineraries with themed travel, such as outdoor, culinary and history attractions as well as clickable/playable video content. The itinerary content and videos will be provided by the Beyond partners. The website landing page will allow visitors to click through to each partner’s website; dutchesstourism.com, sullivancatskills.com and visitcentralnewyork.com.
The site map above is a list of pages the partners need for the website. The contractor should recommend UX best practices on how to present the content clearly. There are no brand guidelines for the Beyond the Big Apple logo. The contractor will design the website using elements of the logo and complementary colors and fonts. Design must showcase the three distinctive regions within New York. Dutchess Tourism, Sullivan Catskills and Central New York and other partner logos must be included. Partners will supply photos to be used to highlight their areas.
Videos will be hosted on YouTube and embedded on the website. Videos are still in production and closed captions will be included.
The content for the itineraries will be supplied by the partners and has yet to be developed. The page template will be a mix of text and captivating images. The itineraries, in varying lengths (5-day, 7-day, etc.), will highlight destinations across the three regions to assist visitors in planning their vacation. There is no need for filters by type or location.
Business listings for specific attractions/destinations will not be a part of this website. Attractions/destinations may be linked to partner websites’ listings or directly to the business’ website.
Websites that can reference as examples of promotional partnerships within New York State:
https://capital-saratoga.com/
https://visitadirondacks.com/
https://visitcatskills.com/
Accessibility:
The website must meet the requirements for ADA compliance (WCAG 2.2) and the landing page will have language translation and accessibility tools. The contractor will supply recommendations and identify costs related to translation and accessibility tools. The contractor must include in the contract budget, the costs to subscribe/purchase and implement translation and accessibility tools through the first full year of application on website.
There is no preference in accessibility tools vendors. Tools should minimally include screen reader, translation, and text styling/customization functions. UserWay and ReciteMe are companies that partners are aware of or are using but other recommendations are welcome.
Currently, the only PDF the website needs to host is a Beyond the Big Apple brochure, for visitors to print should they need to. This guide also serves a reference of how the content on the website can be presented. The content in the brochure can also live on each partners’ landing page.
The target audience are international visitors, making translation tool a key component.
While our ideal tool would support 30+ languages, our key languages to support would be Mandarin, Spanish, Hindi, Russian, Arabic, Portuguese, French, German, Japanese, Dutch and Italian.
Website Management:
The contractor will set up GA4 (Google analytics) to track data though a dashboard or a report that can be exported and shared with partners with the following stats: total visits, visits by page, unique visits, time spent on the website, origin of international visitors, referring sites, and conversions to be determined based on marketing campaigns.
The contractor will provide updates to website during the contract period, if requested. The website will be built on a Content Management System (CMS) that the Beyond partners can update themselves independently of contractor.
There is no preferred CMS platform but is a requirement for this proposal. Contractors can provide multiple options with price points along with their top recommendation. Training on how to update content should be factored into the proposal.
Contractor will be responsible for hosting the website. With no previous advertising campaign driving to a microsite website, it is difficult to provide the expected traffic. Previous campaigns have garnered 2,000-5,000 page visits to standalone domain, while international visitors have accounted for 500,000-700,000 visitors on a partners’ main website.
The contractor will complete scope of work services for website launch no later than December 1, 2024.
