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Portals
Canada, Germany, the North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) state in Germany, and the UK have online portals that collect and publish events from government agencies, including information regarding museums, tourism, and cultural events. Most of the relevant online portals we identified relate to the tourism efforts of each country, which tend to pull event data from government agencies, local tourism bureaus, or event destination websites. Of the portals reviewed, Canada's portal has the highest rate of engagement, while the NRW has the lowest bounce rate.
METHODOLOGY
I visited state and country government websites in search of portals that met the request criteria. I found that many cities or regions have their own portals for regional events, so I searched extensively to uncover portals that gathered data from city or regional government agencies into one location. I then examined entries at each portal identified to ascertain the type of information presented and how the information was gathered. In addition, I use the browser plug-in SEOQuake to gather data on website traffic statistics. In the span of a single Wonder request, I was able to identify four online portals that met the criteria.
CANADA
The Canadian government offers a calendar of events that pulls events from various cities and provinces, including events at museums, libraries, parks, and government-owned entities. The events can be filtered by location and date.
Many of these events appear to fall under the government-run Canadian Heritage portfolio of organizations. The data appears to be gathered directly from the websites of these organizations. For instance, an event called "Get Moving with Motivate Canada" provides information about an event taking place at the Canadian Museum of History with a link to the Motivate Canada website, suggesting the information was gathered from this source.
Using a browser plug-in called SEOQuake, I was able to access website traffic data. Since it is a plug-in, I cannot link directly to those results, so I have taken a screenshot of the plug-in results and provided it in the attached document. The website has logged 10.6 million visits with 4.52 million unique visitors and 4.6 pages per visit. Average duration of a page visit is just under eight minutes. The page has a 27.2% bounce rate. This bounce rate is directly related to the relevance of a page, as it indicates the percentage of visitors who leave the site after visiting that page, not venturing further into the website's offerings. The website appears to be fairly active, and I found no negative data related to the site.
GERMANY
The German government gathers events happening throughout the country in their tourism website's calendar of events. The site can be filtered for activities related to sports, theater, exhibitions, festivals, and more.
The data appears to be pulled from city-level websites. For instance, an exhibition at the German Spy Museum is cited as coming from the Berlin city tourism website. Other entries are pulled directly from museum or organization websites, such as an exhibition at the Medieval Crime Museum.
In terms of engagement, this website touts 101,000 visits with 88,700 unique visitors and an average of about 2 pages per visit. The average duration of a site visit is just under two minutes, and the bounce rate is relatively high at 65.5%. This bounce rate may indicate that the website is not particularly successful since it suggests that visitors are leaving the page without venturing further into the site.
NRW: GERMANY
The NRW Tourism website is sponsored by the Ministry for the Economy, Innovation, Digitalization and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, the European Union, and the Investment in Growth and Employment Agency. Its calendar of events highlights cultural events and attractions in various regions within the North Rhine-Westphalia state of Germany.
The information appears to be gathered from the event host sites. For example, the Night of Industrial Culture in the Ruhr Metropolis takes place at the ExtraSchicht, which is a cooperative project promoted by several partners such as the Regionalverband Ruhr, Ruhr Tourismus GmbH, and the VRR (German transportation service).
The website boasts about 2,740 visits from 1,680 unique visitors who visit an average of 2.83 pages per visit. The average duration of a site visit is about 3.5 minutes, but the bounce rate is fairly low at 16.67%.
ENGLAND
The Visit England website offers a less conventional calendar of events layout, but it provides options for searching for events in various regions of the country. While not entirely intuitive, the site offers a search feature that allows a visitor to search for June events, for instance.
Each event appears to be pulled either from a city or region website or directly from an event page. For example, the "country fair fun at the Cheshire County Show" event information appears to come from the Royal Cheshire County Show website but also links to other events taking place in Cheshire. Compared to the other portals we identified, the Visit England provided a more prominent focus on sporting events, such as the Barbury International Horse Trials, gathered from the Wiltshire tourism page.
The Visit England website appears to be frequently visited with 60,900 visitors, 59,900 of whom are unique visitors. Average visits are around 2:36 minutes in length and include 2.76 pages, but the bounce rate is high at 47.79%. While I cannot confirm why the bounce rate is relatively high, the less-than-intuitive design of the site may be a contributing factor. Personally, I found the site a bit difficult to navigate.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, online portals are available for events taking place in Canada, Germany, the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, and the UK. These portals collect and publish events gathered from government agencies, including information on museum exhibitions, tourism, and cultural events. Canada's portal is the most visited, while the NRW site does a good job of keeping visitors engaged.