Gullivers Sports Travel (TUI)

Project summary

• Information Architecture
• Design
• Development
• Mosaic
• Mapping

Gullivers Sports Travel is the UK’s leading rugby and cricket tours operator and an Official Licensed Operator for the Lions tour to South Africa in 2009. Gullivers Sports Travel also offers a wide range of sports tours for schools and clubs and hosts both outbound and inbound festivals and tournaments for all age groups.

The situation

Gullivers Sports Travel is experiencing increased traffic and interest over the last couple of years with a significant increase during the 2007 Rugby World Cup. It has been expanding their business to schools and clubs in order to encompass the sports market. They correctly identified the need to improve their online presence, conveying a more contemporary design and content as well as integrating their reservation system with the website.

Choosing Netizen Digital

Due to the volume of information and technical risk in implementing a new online solution, Gullivers Sports Travel invited a selected number of agencies to discuss possible ideas, that would incorporate excellent design, complex functionality and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Gullivers Sports Travel chose Netizen Digital due to its experience in designing and developing travel-focused websites, recognising the range of options that Netizen Digital suggested in regards to design, implementation, integration and SEO, and how they would contribute to their online performance.

“We selected Netizen Digital because of their significant experience in the travel industry as well as their unique approach to delivery of successful web implementation projects.”

The key objective

The key objective of the proposed redesign was to offer a fresh approach to their existing business as well as integration with a 3rd party reservation system, plus integrating a community throughout the site, allowing visitors to create User Generated Content. 

The challenge

The challenge was to design and build a complex, multi-faceted site.  It has to provide the facility to book sports-related holidays, organise custom group tours for schools and clubs, as well as become a social hub for sports activities and travel.  This, combined with the added complexity of integrating into a reservation system (Travel Studio) that is being developed in parallel resulted in a requirement to provide an elegant solution and a project that would be delivered on-target and on-budget.

Our strategy

Design

We needed to work on a solution that would both consider their revised branding strategy as well as tying in with the multitude of themes and sections within the company. We produced a series of designs showing a range of themes for each key section of the business, as well as new functionality through the community (personalisation) module. We produced an innovative bespoke and interactive flash mapping system as well as a fully customised flash event panel on the home page. In the future, we aim to introduce Gullivers Sports Travel to the benefits of Rich Internet Applications such as Adobe AIR.

Development

The development phase is in its infancy, but is progressing on schedule.  Planning has begun for the iterative development of Travel Studio and its integration into the site. Through the application of agile project management, resources are applied and withdrawn from the process to meet demand.  This allows us to develop multiple aspects in parallel, meeting the targets for delivery.

The results

Through excellent communication and understanding of Gullivers business case, the first phase of the project has completed on schedule, with the design process gaining universal approval.

This means that we have a solid foundation upon which the development and construction of the site will take place over the coming months.  The project will run for several more months and we aim to produce the same standard of delivery throughout.

“They have certainly lived up to our expectations. Over the last three months they have consistently delivered an excellent level of service and provided the added value that we expect from a creative agency.”