MANCHESTER, VT [March 21, 2009] – W. Hardy Interactive, Inc. today launched significant updates to the newest version of its Vermont vacation travel planner at GoVermont.com, first published in 1996. During the past thirteen years, this product has been adopted by several prominent Vermont websites and has proven very popular, over time receiving millions of visitors. It has served as an online cornerstone for tourism in Vermont, one of the state's largest industries.

This latest release integrates on-line reservations using the Travelocity partner network web services. Using XML data interchange, the website is populated with content from Travelocity but under a distinct brand. The user can search for lodging by specifying travel dates and then obtain rates and availability without leaving our website. The website also integrates events, provided by the State of Vermont with other data to provide a complete travel planning experience. The resulting product is one that offers an exciting vacation planning experience where the users can build their itinerary based on detailed information about major regions, counties, towns, mountain resorts and cross country ski centers, all cross-referenced against nearby lodging, upcoming events, user comments and interactive maps.

W. Hardy Interactive also built a custom calendar using the Yahoo User Interface (YUI) library which provides for a simplified selecting of dates in a single calendar (rather than two). Custom JavaScript code was also contributed by W. Hardy back to Yahoo! and adopted as a component in their YUI library. More information about the Vermont Travel Planner can be found in our earlier press release, and recent information about the Yahoo! User Interface calendar can be found in a recent blog.