Myself and brother, who both live in Falmouth (Cornwall) and my dad, are creating a site for people coming down to Falmouth. We are writing to all the hotels, cafes, restaurants, etc, in Falmouth and giving them a place on the site.

So basically, what information do you need to know? And what should be shown on the home page? I want to make sure I get the balance between good design, pictures, and text. It needs to be easy to navigate and quick to find what you need.

So, ideas welcome.

Cheers!

Clean layout.
Ability to review, and add comments about different establishments.
A map
An events page (what is going around the year)
A holiday planner, i.e. what to see and what to do during a stay.
Plenty of outward links to hotels and stuff.

Good printable map would be great. If one could choose what locations to show on the map before printing would also be nice feature. List of places to stay in (hotels/bed&breakfast etc...) and their prices. Also a good list of restaurants with pricerange and descriptions is nice. I think I would be pretty happy with those. List of places to see would be nice since usually those places not mentioned in a travel agency brochures are the best

Would you say that using something like Joomla would be a possibility?

Yes but you would have to learn how to use it, style it and program it before being able to use it.

You need a big fabulous picture of the harbour on the home page - it's the third largest natural harbour in the world, so that's a big selling point. Include a bit of history about Falmouth on the site, people love to read a bit of background info on places they are going to visit.

I've used it before - but I guess styling could be harder. I Could create my own program for it. Depends if I can find the time, although it's something I'll consider.


You've visited? Or just googled? The harbour is nice, I've got a few nice images that I'm going to have on rotation, for each time you view the site.

Joomla is pretty easy to style.. There are tons of extensions for J! I'm sure there are some for what you need.

I'd say: I want pictures, pictures and pictures of hotels, restaurants etc. I want to get the feel of the place before I get there..

No, i'm just a wealth of information, hehe. I have visited there actually, but it was quite a few years ago, I remember it being lovely.

Make it an information site, list all the area attractions with in depth explanations about them. History, festivals, folklore if any, seasonal temperatures, current weather, water temp, sea levels, famous people that have lived there or visited, oldest houses, castles etc.
Obviously I don't know anything about the area so if you don't have castles... sorry... be the site where people can go for info on the area.

Then include restaurants, hotels, churches, nightlife, etc.
If you give the information, local merchants will "HAVE" to advertise with you or be listed.
Hope that helps!!

Oh and one thing to remember is that you will probably get arrested like 100 times while making the project, I know I did when I was working on one for my town. I had to get permission from the city council to make it and thank goodness I did get it because without that I wouldn't have been able to explain to the police why I was getting information on every shop in a certain area. They got to know who I was after a while and they learned to leave me alone, but it was kind of funny after a while. Also, you'll see a lot of areas have pictures of the buildings or shopping centers . You can't take the pictures you have to write to the owners of the company who is leasing it and ask for them to take the picture for you and send it to you.

I tell you, free advertising is a REAL pain.. I find it easier to just say "Hey, $1,000 and you can be listed" lol.

Isn't the US paranoid?

Thanks all, great suggestions.

I'm drafting a letter to send to all the hotels in the area, will send letters to tons of places.

I've started creating my own CMS for it as well. I did want to just add things via phpMyAdmin, but Dad and Brother cant do it lol.