our work
&beyond website development
Launch Date: November 2008
The website was created for leading responsible luxury adventure travel company CC Africa, who was undergoing a rebranding exercise to coincide with their expansion into India and Latin America. The rebranding was the ideal opportunity for the company to launch a new website that reflected their brand of natural luxury, combined with simple, easy to use features. The intention was to create a visually compelling site that would attract the attention of potential travellers, combined with a depth of content and easy to use features to help potential guests plan their prospective journeys. While maintaining the company’s image as an established responsible tourism and luxury adventure travel business in Africa, the website also had to allow for its ongoing expansion onto other continents.
With a base of previous guests and potential travellers spread throughout the globe, direct response conversion marketing online has always been key to the business, with the previous African website receiving over 95 000 visits per month (60% from search engines), with a visit to lead conversion of 1.8%. The objective for the website is to increase this conversion figure by 77%.
Consisting of over 690 pages, the website aims to achieve this with a wide array of interactive maps and product tools, as well as audio, video and photo galleries showcasing the company’s lodges and range of travel experiences.
Technologies Used:
- * Open source language based proprietary development
- * Web 2.0 technologies
- * Content Distribution Network
- * Source to Sale Analytics
- * Multivariate testing platform
customer journey
On average, prospective travellers visit five to eight websites before refining their holiday selection. Search scent research indicates that most people searching the Internet for travel plans begin with broad phrases before narrowing to specific product related queries. The &Beyond website recognises this by offering general information on a range of country where the company operates, as well as detailed information about specific lodges and tours. With the trend towards a decline in site visitors navigating via the home page, each page needs to function as a stand-alone, drawing in the casual user and offering sufficient information and an easy navigation to draw in potential guests to browse further.
first time safari planner
Bearing in mind that the website would be visited by repeat guests, seasoned travellers and safari novices alike, the intention was to make it easy for all categories of visitors to quickly and effectively find what they were looking for. While repeat guests can quickly navigate to the lodge of their choice via a drop-down list and seasoned travellers can look up regions of interest, first time safari-goers require a little more guidance to select the product of their choice. The first time safari planner, presented in a quirky and accessible manner, allows potential travellers to make simple selections in an interactive manner. Choices are presented in a visual fashion that makes the selection easy even for first time travellers and an tour itinerary is offered based on the preferences selected. The programming also makes use of smart technology that allows the &Beyond staff to factor in inventory yields and availability when offering users a selection of potential itineraries.
First Time Safari Planner - http://www.andbeyondafrica.com/first_time_safari
trip planner
The trip planner is another tool, aimed at the more informed and sophisticated traveller with a better idea of what kind of experience they are looking for. The planner assumes that potential guests have selected a country or region of preferences and offers them a selection of tours based in that region. Web 2.0 technology (AJAX, DHTML) is used to provide instant results, with the selection of tours refined in real time.
Trip Planner - http://www.andbeyondafrica.com/trip_planner
interactive maps
Maps provide an instant visual context to help potential travellers to explore countries of interest. Showcasing places of interest and lodges in a number of African countries, they allow users to quickly and easily distances and locations. Over 60 interactive maps were created for the &Beyond website using Adobe Flash, the best of vector image processing and satellite maps.
Map Link Examples:
Africa - Destination
Tanzania - Country
Migration, Lake & Crater - Grand Safari
Cape Town - Region
&BEYOND Phinda Private Game Reserve - Reserve
image gallery
In the travel context, the use of photography is vital to capture and retain the user’s attention. While this idea has been utilised in the initial design of the website, it is taken even further in the many image galleries located throughout the site. Ease of access, user centric design and contextual relevance all help heighten the impact of carefully selected images and were taken into account during design and implementation.
Image Gallery - http://www.andbeyondafrica.com/african_safari/tanzania/photo_gallery
safari videos
Video has become increasing popular online, particularly with overseas users, where bandwidth is not an issue. Since a large percentage of the target audience fits this profile, the use of video was considered critical on the site. The nature of the safari business means that imagery is exceptionally important in enticing travellers to select a particular place to visit and video is an even more compelling medium, presenting viewers with a vivid account of what they can expect to see and experience. Over 20 experiential videos selling the destinations and lodges where &Beyond operates were created specifically for use on this website. The videos are showcased in a gallery that allows visitors to syndicate and download them. They are streamed via Akamai, arguably the best content distribution network in the world with over 27 00 points of presence.
Video Gallery - &Beyond Phinda Private Game Reserve