Project Description
PROJECT INFO
Our client is a travel and tourism board of a major Caribbean country and multi-island vacation destination. They are responsible for marketing and promoting the various businesses that operate on the numerous islands that make up the country.
The client’s website needed an overhaul to accommodate the large amount of constantly changing content as well as integrate social media as a larger part of the site. The site also needed a modern look and feel. The client wanted to showcase all that their destination had to offer including: how to get there, lodging, seasonal specials and offers, attractions, excursions, upcoming events and more. They wanted to upgrade their CMS platform from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7.
The client wanted the ability to have visitors post photos to their social media accounts and have the photo feeds appear on the website. They needed 8 different versions of the site available in 8 different languages. They wanted a responsive design that would function well on desktop, tablet and mobile phone browsers.
The client envisioned several interactive sections of the website. The areas consisted of an interactive map calculating the flight time from the visitors’ location to the destination, a planning widget where the visitor could login and save accommodations and activities, and a booking widget that would allow the visitor to book the flight and accommodations for their trip. The website would also feature a section which would allow visitors to upload photos via Instagram and Facebook that would appear as a feed on the home page of the site.
The client needed an easy to use content management system (CMS) that the staff (from many different countries) would use to update and change the site’s content. The client also needed the ability to create and manage employee credentials for access to the website. Since many employees with different skill sets would be making changes to the website, the client wanted the ability to create different roles which provided people with access to only certain areas of the website.
Key Functionality
Business listings: detailed business profiles which provide details on the various activities, hotels, services, and more that are available on the islands. The listings contain descriptions, photos, hours of operation, deals and specials, and more.
Trip Planner: visitors can create an account and save various elements (activities, events, accommodations, etc.) to thier account creating an ‘itinerary’ to access later when they are visiting the islands on vacation.
Booking Widget: enables visitors to search for hotels and airfare and hen book via a customized integration with Expedia.
“Island Hopping” Interactive Map: an interactive map which provides visitors with information about how easy it is to travel from Island to Island via ferry and airplane routes and the times and schedules.
Getting Here: Interactive trip travel calculator which enables the visitor to enter their travel origination airport and tells visitor how long the travel time will be to get to the Islands. Visitors can then book their trip via an Expedia integration.
Social Feeds: displays feed posts from Facebook and Instagram that vacationers have posted on the client’s social media sites.
Multi-lingual capabilities: versions of the site in eight different languages.
