Please change the default banner link back to en.wikivoyage.org. Here's why:
Links to various language versions are in the left sidebar of every Wikipedia and Wikivoyage page. The _very small_ number of our default banner clicking audience who don't want English should not drive our choice here. De, es, fr, it, nl, pt, ru, and sv Wikipedia should all have custom links to respective language. The default link for all other language version banners and most importantly the English Wikipedia banner should definitely be en.wikivoyage.org.
The hard fact (those who know more about this please chime in) is that most people clicking a banner are only curious and will go away if this click only takes them to a boring portal. They have other things to do.
We will have failed badly, and wasted our Central Notice spot, if many people who click our banner never even see our site. These people were consulting Wikipedia for a reason and understandably wanted to get back to what they were doing. Asking them to go farther than one click into our banner is overreaching. So skip the portal.
When I started working on our banner, I was sure the portal was the place to send people because *I* wanted to show off all our language versions. I also wanted to show off some of our beautiful travel photos right in the banner itself. But that would have required a separate photo credits link in the banner. Jalexander, who has done many central notice banners, told me that he had found that putting more than one link in a banner actually confuses people about where we are leading them and many respond to that lack of direction by not clicking on the banner at all. Oh, I realized, *I* wanted to show people two things, our portal AND our site, but that people would respond to this lack of direction by going away because they only want to see one thing and then get back to what they were doing.
So the question becomes, do we want people to see our portal or our site? And which would people find more rewarding to see? It's a matter of perspective. I propose we honor the perspective of most of our banner viewers and show them the en.wikivoyage Main Page, unless they are viewing one of the eight other language versions of Wikipedia for which we have a Wikivoyage version.
CentralNotice is a hugely powerful messenger, it is a shame to use it badly. I don't think people's feelings will be hurt by our portal but I do think most of them will feel it is so much uninspired and boring cruft and many will go no farther. Period. What a shame that would be. So link to our site directly, not the portal.
People don't want to go to another page to another page. They are wary of that time sink.
This is not about our feelings. It is about the feelings off the huge number of people we are showing the banner to who frankly expect us to show them something interesting in _one_ click. It is about doing this smart. Let's not bore them with our portal. Please think this through.
It is exciting. But let's face it, you and I are more interested in Wikivoyage than most people. Let's not start off boring them with our boring portal. If they are genuinely interested, they will find it soon enough next time they type wikivoyage into their location bar. But they wont even do that if they haven't first seen the site and what it offers. We need to offer a first glimpse of the site, not a fist glimpse of the boring portal. Most people will be lending us only five seconds of their time. Let's not squander it.
I designed the banner's default link, and the English version link, to be en.wikivoyage.org for above reasons.
Would a Meta admin please change it back to en.wikivoyage.org. Sure, wait for discussion, but don't wait till tomorrow... the notice is running now.
Roger