nycvisit.com

Review by Adrian Mann, owner of Adrian Mann Design, providing independent reviews and analysis of travel web sites in the UK.

This week, we look at NYCVisit.com – the official New York City tourism web site.

Overall
The site has that certain “United States’ look – the white space, the colours, the typeface, all give it a definite style. The homepage downloads in 31.5 seconds on a 56kb modem, which is getting towards the upper limit. The majority of images on the page are the logos of the sponsors, but at least these are tucked away on the bottom of the page. Links on the page fall into two categories, one being links to current activities happening this week, with the rest linking to the major content areas of the site – Visitors, Accommodation, Events Calendar and so on. There’s also a search facility.

Content
Starting with the main areas, the Visitors area has all the things you’d expect to help the visitor plan their trip – vacation guide, things to do, calendar of events, restaurants, accommodation, and more. The ‘Things to do’ page has links to information on parks, gardens, shopping, sport, beaches and others, and there is also a drop down menu, covering topics such as museums and galleries, Broadway, aquariums and zoos, which then generates a further more detailed drop down – for instance, selecting Broadway gives the you the option of selecting from comedies, drama, musicals, ticket services and more. Each of the selections produces a list of subjects, ten to a page, with basic information and contact details for each one, and where available, links to their web page.
This format is followed throughout, and it makes searching for a particular event, activity or location quite simple. Each of the results pages can be emailed to a friend, and there’s also a ‘printer-friendly’ option.
‘Getting Around’ covers all the transport options in New York, from walking to helicopters. Information on the subway is particularly good, and has tips on how to use it, prices, links to other subway-related sites, but the only thing I couldn’t find was a map.
Moving on to ‘Maps and Neighbourhoods’ in the search for a subway map, there are maps for the five boroughs, with an interactive map for Manhattan (you’ll need Flash for this). The Manhattan map allows you to zoom in, print, show items of interest and see some 360-degree pictures of selected landmarks. The other four don’t have the interactive maps, but do have more detailed information and further links.
The Calendar of Events uses a search engine, where you can enter the dates of your trip, and select certain areas or events, or just enter a keyword. Results are presented in a list, offering a brief description and links for more information.
‘Accommodations’ is basically a link to the hotels site run by NYC & Co, the company behind this site. It’s a fairly standard hotel reservation and booking site, and covers a good range of hotels and price ranges.
There are also pages dedicated to travel professionals, journalists and meeting, event and incentive professionals.

Summary
It’s a great site for researching your trip to New York before you go. There’s an enormous amount of information and links to all the things you might want to find out, and on the whole, it’s fairly easy to navigate and get to what you want. Each of the areas expands into further pages and links, and getting detailed information on very specific items is relatively easy. There was some lack of consistency, particularly in how links are displayed, and a distinct lack of images – even the NYC images pages only displayed 8 pictures and one webcam – but overall, it’s an excellent resource. Recommended.