This is a fun idea: As you probably know the European Football Championship is currently taking place in Austria and Switzerland. How about presenting the official tourism websites of the national teams?

Romania – waiting to be discovered

What a surprise, there is an official German version with a German top level domain. The design is old fashioned. And then there is another official German version, which is the very, very, very poor translation of the English version. Which in turn was "developed with assistance provided by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)". Which is not bad at all. Better than the rest! Yes, I want to visit this country after having looked at their website.

http://www.rumaenien-tourismus.de/
http://www.romaniatravel.com/
http://www.romaniatravel.com/index.php?id=66&uid=0&L=2

The Netherlands – not just cheese

I have criticized the full Web 2.0 version for the US market before. However, I dare say, it is still much cooler than the current German version. Which is a pity, becaue the Netherlands is a very cool destination indeed and the non-US sites do not reflect this quality at all. The look & feel of the French version is completely different from the German version. I am not a corporate design specialist, but this does seem troublesome. On the plus side, the French version offers YouTube videos.

The drop down menu apparently offers version for each of the Scandinavian countries. But all four options will send you to the same landing page with short welcome messages in the respective languages. Well, why not, it is a nice gesture. But, not a good idea to use a jpg-picture to display the text. And why use yet another colour (green)?

http://www2.holland.com/de/
http://us.holland.com/

Italy – Mamma mia, where is the passione?

Well, good footballers, bad tourism website. Poor German translations. This website is no fun at all. The copy is far too long, poorly structured, and not enticing. I would never ever want to visit this country if I knew nothing about it at all. See for yourself.

http://www.enit.it/infodesk.asp?lang=UK

France – missing the o lá lá

France, the country of poets, of romance, of beauty, of fashion, of arts, of perfume, of gourmet delights… I could go on and on. But what happened online? It is hard to believe that this should be the offical website of the French Tourist Authority. No official logo? Oh dear, what a mess! Funny though they are bold enough to feature Google Ads. Wait a second, it appears there is another site by the government. I am confused. They also feature a video community (?) called Lost in Francelation.

And the champions are: Switzerland & Austria

I must say, the results come as a surprise to me. The host countries Switzerland and Austria are the online winners (so far). Great design, great pictures, reflecting the beauty of the countries. Never mind, both have been eliminated from the tournament already. Just rock on online!

http://www.austria.info
http://www.switzerland.com

I have to give credit to Jan Theofel, a German IT-entrepreneur and passionate cook, who manages my favourite blog, his private recipe blog Jans Küchenleben (in German). During the Football World championship 2006 in Germany he presented recipes of the nations playing in the tournament. And he is doing it again during the EURO, topping it with a Euro-chocolate-blog. Bon appetit!