About Colours of Istria
Colours of Istria is a consortium of three towns (Umag, Novigrad, Buje), the municipality of Brtonigla, their local tourist boards and two large commercial hoteliers. Together, they own 11 hotels, 4 resorts and 7 large campsites in the northwest area of Istria, Croatia.
Assignment: boost tourism in Istria using online media
The aim of Colours of Istria was to create a portal website to internationally promote the northwest area of Istria and its destinations, activities, and regional culinary and lifestyle attractions. Ultimately this umbrella site should result in more bookings in local (family) hotels, campsites, resorts, apartments and even private accommodations by intercepting would-be tourists online and helping them find what they really want.
The consortium chose User Intelligence to design both the regional portal site, Colours of Istria, and to redesign some of the hotel and camping websites as a separate assignment.
Method: from concept to complete detailed design
Since this project was driven by a very strict deadline (start of the tourist season), we had to be straightforward in our design approach. This meant going from design sketches and website concepts to a detailed interaction and visual design in three months, user tested and delivered with complete SEO, web analytics, and content strategies.
Colours of Istria is based on a nuanced mix of providing relevant, inspiring content on one hand and guiding visitors towards to book accommodations on the other. Ultimately, the business goal is to drive as many users as possible to the booking engine, but this must not come at the expense of users’ experience and quest for help. In order to achieve the right mix of inspiration and conversion, we defined a strategy based on Attraction, Inspiration, Engagement, Conversion, and Retention.
Attraction was a function of effective SEO bringing visitors to Inspiring content, and Engaging them with helpful and informative functionality and social approval mechanisms (e.g., TripAdvisor ratings). We aim for Conversion with a user-friendly, non-intrusive booking process, and stimulate Retention with specials, offers, and benefits for returning and referring customers. Users appreciated the concept during testing, and we improved our design based on the test results.
Result: excellent website, satisfied client!
The resulting website speaks for itself; it is fresh and clean combining valuable content with intuitive navigation and information scent.
“An excellent result,” comments Davor Brenko, Director of Business Development at Istraturist Umag, “our demands were extremely high at the start of this project. With our new website, we expect to attract a lot of visitors and an increase in the number of bookings of our accommodations.”
Currently, the site gets about 30,000 visits per month. This is largely the result of effective campaigns and good Search Engine Marketing, but organic search results are rapidly improving as well. Since going live in May 2011, the percentage of visitors that continues to the local booking sites has grown and continues to grow steadily.
Want to get tangible results from your website too?
Colours of Istria is a success, but equally important is that results can be measured, reported, and compared (to previous results). With those numbers in hand, our client is capable of adjusting and fine-tuning the website to accommodate visitors’ needs.
If you want to know more about getting results from your website, please feel free to contact us.