Tourist chiefs boost videoconferencing network

The UK's national tourism agency VisitBritain is expanding its videoconferencing links with its offices around the world.

The agency - funded by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport - is using videoconferencing to hold meetings while saving money on travel and accommodation costs.

VisitBritain has installed Polycom's group videoconferencing systems in 14 regional hub offices in cities around the world including Amsterdam, Berlin, Chicago, Dubai, Johannesburg, New York, Paris, Sydney, Tokyo and Toronto. It also plans to roll it out at its Spanish office.

The videoconferencing is part of the agency's efficiency and cost-saving strategy, VisitBritian's procurement manager Tim Weston told silicon.com.

He said: "We set about deploying videoconferencing for all the reasons you'd expect a globally dispersed organisation to want it."

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Weston added: "Audio conferences are great as a way of getting one person's view but when you want multiple people to participate the optimal solution is a video call."

The agency is also putting in place a communications convergence strategy, beefing up the organisation's MPLS data network and moving the videoconferencing traffic onto this and off ISDN lines.

In the hub offices there will be a dedicated room for videoconferencing, while individual videoconferencing systems - a webcam and Polycom's PVX software - will be deployed for frequent users at their desks.