Minister's Forerword
Introduction
Credits
Acknowledgements
Local Ireland
PROJECT OBJECTIVE
SYSTEM OF ON-LINE RESERVATIONS FOR BED & BREAKFAST ACCOMMODATION PROVIDERS
Local Ireland is a joint venture company owned by Nua Ltd and Eircom. Eircom owns the majority of Nua. The content of Local Ireland remains in the ownership of those who provide it. Each county controls its own content and each community controls how it will interact on-line.
Local Ireland is for everybody Irish or who has an interest in Ireland. It is for the casual browser, the small, medium or large business, the hotel, B&B, national organisation, the local, national or special interest publisher, those with archives, the local historian, genealogist, schoolchild, student or old person with a story to tell. The plan is that Local Ireland will include those with an interest in Ireland in other countries and that in time there will be Local New York and Sydney and so on.
Business Case for eCommerce Infrastructure Project
Local Ireland is a world class Internet infrastructure for all things Irish, it is based on the premise that information has three properties: Content, Structure and Publications. Local Ireland realises that there is a wealth of quality Irish content but that having content alone is not enough because the Internet is fast approaching information overload.
Accordingly, people find if difficult to find the information they need. Local Ireland is solving this problem for Ireland and for Irish related content by providing the structure to make that content meaningful and valuable and the publication to make the content found on the Internet. All content on Local Ireland is fully categorised and ordered before it goes online. It is indexed in a way similar to books in a library.
Local Ireland has created a suite of tools, the Local Community Builder (LCB) which allows publication to the Local Ireland site without the need for traditional HTML and FPT skills. Through these tools, Local Ireland is making the publication of Irish content easier and most cost effective.
Given the high number of tourists visiting Ireland each year and the continued popularity of B&B accommodation with resident holidaymakers, Local Ireland decided to provide a B&B reservation service.
eBusiness Solution
Local Ireland’s B&B Reservation Service was developed in conjunction with Guliver and Fexco and benefits from a robust, flexible and scalable back-end. The key features of the system are:
- Easy to use tools for publication of information on B&B establishments, locations and local attractions
- Meticulous classification system for the storage and retrieval of information
- Webpages are formatted to allow for printing in an attractive manner
- Browsers can signup to relevant mailing lists
- Input and publication of standard content is free of charge
- Local Ireland Events Homepage provides editorial, highlights current events and acts as the starting point for accommodation browsing and searching.
- Accommodation can be booked securely using credit card
Who will benefit from this eCommerce Infrastructure Development?
B&B accommodation providers
Tourists
Resident holidaymakers
Local Ireland
Merrion House
Merrion road
Dublin 4
Tel: + 353 1 218 7650
sfallon@local.ie
www.local.ie