If you ever wondered about the official tourism website (also know as National Tourism Organization or NTO of a country) here is a list of 196 195 countries for you.
This is a work in progress and an individual effort. Also, I know the list would become obsolete quite soon because so many URLS will change. So if you spot an error or see that a website has moved to a new location, please leave a comment. I would be grateful to you.
On the preview of this blog post I also see this page is not looking great but then I will live with a little untidiness.
Not all the pages are in English but hey there is Google translate, right?
All the countries do not have a NTO website, in that case I have linked to an embassy site, usually the USA, don’t ask me why maybe I was too tired after searching for the information about these 196 countries.
You would also see that not all sites open, if you have any tip for those sites they are most welcome.
Why did I do this? Because I wanted to see how many of the NTOS use social media like Facebook, blogs, etc. How did I get this crazy idea? On Twitter PureNewZealand followed me one day and I realized it was the official site of Tourism New Zealand. So I wanted to know how wide spread was the use of social media by NTOs. I have tentative answers now. More on this later.
I actually moved the URL of all the NTOs (Official Tourism Websites). Sorry for the inconvenience.
what a collection. i aapreciate your Hard work
really nice work, words fail me
Thank you Madhav.
A post for bookmark ! Nice effort.
Manish this will be a nightmare after a month, more than half the links will not work! But let us see.
Wonderful post mridula…gr8 coz it is very useful bit of info for thos who need it…thanks for sharing…if i cut paste i may lose the link…have to use my brain and do something..the weather is much better noow in chennai mridula..thanks for all the encouragement..cheers
Ramesh, if you want the list, let me know, I will email it, or bookmark the page on your computer? Good to see you here.
196 countries and territories and I’ve only been to something like 82 – which I am afraid includes countries that no longer exist like the GDR (East Germany) and I also include the Holy See (Vatican) (but not bits of countries like Aruba rather than Netherlands Antilles)! I still want to get to 100 countries but there are so many I also want to go back to, it’s getting quite difficult..
Qaminante 82 countries!! That is impressive. You should be digging up your file pictures and if they are film you should be scanning them and posting everyday! Please. I have not even been to 8, my count is 6 if I exclude India! I had to exclude those countries because try as I might I was not able to find a official website for them.
Thank YOU! Spent few hours visiting some of the sites listed here. So far the site and country (for tourism purpose) that impressed me most is Iran – spent few more hours reading about Achaemenid Empire.
Atul you have been to quite a few countries, I know. So will it be Iran next or is it that you have a US passport?
I have a US passport – so no trip to Iran. Planning to visit Panama/ Costa Rica or Argentina or Cambodia this winter. Leaving for Hong Kong day after tomorrow….
You travel a lot Atul but you don’t blog, what a pity. Are you on twitter?
Thank goodness… u r a good compiler 196 woofff….
U united em
The United Nations Mridula 😛
lol
Tarun 😀
Gosh! Mridula, you sure have a lot of patience. How long did you take to compile all these? So many countries in your list were in fact new to me 🙂
Akhila, so many were new to me too!
That’s a wonderful work you’ve done Mridula. Have bookmarked it.
Thanks for sharing, it shows your hard work too.
Any plans cooking ? 😀
Not really Nisha, apart from trying to write a conference paper for which I have no funding to attend. But you never know sometimes things work.
Wow! you really went ahead and spent some time here. Thanks.
Pooj all for trying to figure out how may of them use social media!
For Kuwait, I could give you a couple of links, but I don’t know what qualifies it to be an official website:
http://www.kuwaittourism.com/
http://www.visit-kuwait.com/
This is good work Mridula, thanks.
I’ve been to 20 out of those…and the world is so big!
So much to see, so little time left….
Celine many thanks for the links. When we say NTO we mean a national level government led organization though it may have private partnership too. I think these two sites are private though excellent I am sure. 80 is impressive and I am not even 8!
Mridula,
I’ll try and find out if there is an official NTO website.
As to the number of countries I’ve visited, it’s not 80 (though I wish!)…but only 20, and that too including Kuwait.