Francis-Cummings speaks at E-Tourism Summit

	Introduces innovative online website usability testing product
	Philadephia, PA (March 11, 2008) — Destination Analysts' Erin Francis-Cummings (www.destinationanalysts.com), spoke today at the E-Tourism Summit in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her speech to industry technology marketing professionals introduced the company's online-video conference based destination wesbite usability testing system to the audience.
	According to Francis-Cummings, focus groups and in-depth interviews in laboratory settings have been the traditional methodology employed by destinations to gather feedback on their websites from their key audiences, such as meeting planners, leisure travelers, and the travel trade.
	However, Francis-Cummings relayed, in addition to significant cost advantages, employing Destination Analysts' alternative methodology--in-depth interviews conducted via online video conference--has numerous advantages over traditional methods for generating user feedback on websites. These include:
		Participants can participate in the interview from the comfort of their own home or office, at a time that fits their schedule. This makes bringing together a diverse, high-value group much easier than a set schedule at a distant location. This works particularly well for meeting planners.
		Participants access the website being tested on their own computer, with their own settings, in the environment that they would be in if they were browsing the website on their own.
		Varied geographic coverage can be easily achieved. Participants from around the country can be recruited and interviewed at their leisure.
		In a typical focus group, 8-10 people share time. With breaks and moderator speaking time, each participant ultimately may only have 10-15 minutes of time to share their opinions. In individual interviews, more time can be spent per respondent for detailed probing of key questions.
		Group think and domineering participants can be very serious problems with focus group research. In-depth interviews avoid this problem entirely.
		Collateral, images, web content, video and audio files can be easily shared with participants for testing and evaluation.
	Francis summarized by saying the firm's online usability testing system can help web marketers "quickly obtain rich, valuable feedback from highly representative sample of your website users, which will help your development team produce a website that gives its customers exactly what they need."
	For more details on this research contact Destination Analysts at info@destinationanalysts.com or 415-716-7983.
	About Destination Analysts: Based in San Francisco, California, Destination Analysts (www.destinationanalysts.com) is one of the travel industry’s premier marketing and research consultancies. Destination Analysts work has served major travel industry players such as Amtrak, VISIT FLORIDA, the USDA Forest Service, and the California Travel and Tourism Commission. The ultimate objectives of our clients are carefully analyzed and are the centerpiece of everything we do. David Bratton, founder of Destination Analysts, says it best, "Our entire reason for existing is to help our clients thrive, and our goal is always to provide them with affordable and innovative methods to make their marketing soar."