Ferry Operator Caledonian MacBrayne today (Monday, May 19) launched a major new feature to the Company website www.calmac.co.uk which will bring significant advantages for customers.

The new online feature allows customers to view the suite of 2008 Day Excursions brochures online at www.calmac.co.uk/dayexcursions.

 The suite of brochures, which consists of Day Excursions from Oban, Fort William, Skye, to Isle of Lewis, as well as Kintyre and Clyde Day Excursions, has been developed over the past two months.

The VCAB (Virtual Catalogues and Brochures) system, developed by Blue Saturn Media in 2004, was the first of its kind to offer a completely automated PDF to flash conversion system. This system is now a world leading product in the online publishing sector.

The new user-friendly feature allows customers to visit www.calmac.co.uk/dayexcursions, select the brochure of choice and watch the brochure come to life.

CalMac Marketing Manager Susan Paterson said: “Customers can click and drag the corner of a page to turn the pages or use the arrows to click through the pages, just like a paper brochure. There is also a facility called “Power zoom” which allows magnification of specific areas of the brochure. Each page can be enhanced with outstanding clarity for small text or image views. This feature will also aid visually impaired visitors to the site. An inbuilt text search engine allows customers to instantly find the information they’re looking for.”

The new facility on the CalMac website goes live from today and it is expected that this will further attract potential visitors to the Clyde and Hebridean areas. Current hits on the CalMac website are running well ahead of last year at well over one million page impressions each month.

According to Susan Paterson, this could augur well for the forthcoming summer. “We feel this will be an extremely valuable resource and very convenient for customers, as customers worldwide can view the range of brochures, reducing the time which it would normally take to receive it by post.

“The brochures also provide booking and information details for each of the excursions, in some cases allowing bookings to be made prior to travelling to Scotland. We have had an encouraging start to this month with some very good weather and this always acts as a trigger for activity on our website. Coupled with our television campaign and our new initiative on the Glasgow underground, we will be monitoring the website activity very closely to see how it translates into real visitor numbers.”

Other enhancements to the website include a thumbnail option whereby users will be able to see every page of the brochure clearly, allowing them to find and select a certain page quickly and efficiently.

Users of the system will be able to send a page to a friend which is a simple way to include someone else. By selecting the ‘send to a friend’ option it will automatically transmit a link which will take them straight to VCAB.

Users will be able to click on any website within the brochure and VCAB will take them there immediately.

Users will be able to select the pages that they’re interested in and print the selected pages instead of printing every page.

ends

For further information on the contents of this News Release, please contact Hugh Dan MacLennan, Communications Director, Caledonian MacBrayne. Tel: 0776 435 4021; e-mail hugh.maclennan@calmac.co.uk Caledonian MacBrayne and CalMac are trading names of CalMac Ferries Limited

Issued: Monday 19 May 2008: 1000