Travel and technology companies parking the concerns of tight margins for a day spent experimenting with technology usually don’t regret it.
Adventure travel specialist Tourdust cut its developers loose to see what they could do in terms of presenting a multi-day trek on Mount Kilimanjaro online.
The result is this climbmtkilimanjaro microsite which tells the story in a simple but evocative way – big on imagery, tight on descriptions.
Tourdust boss Ben Colclough admits the site is a little slow but it’s definitely worth devoting a few minutes to for the real sense of experience that comes across.
“It’s challenging to get the right content to rank online nowadays and the days of producing something which just looks good are gone, it has to be of use.
We have experimented before with microsites for mainly SEO purposes and using standard blog templates but we felt more could be done.”
The company now wants to work on the speed of the site, integrate maps further into the tour and experiment with parallax scrolling whereby different elements of the site scroll at different speeds.
The end goal is to extend it to other major climbs and multi-day trips and eventually integrate it into the main website.
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Hi Ben -
I do really like the execution. And if you are wanting to achieve a real sense of experience, I think it does do that.
Although having climbed Kili, part of the experience for me is the sense of anticipation and not knowing quite what to expect. Even having read the guidebooks and seen the image of the signpost at the summit, what you don’t know is what those 5 major eco zones are REALLY going to be like or look like. For me, it makes it so much more of an adventure and I’m glad I didn’t see up front! But maybe that’s just me.
Would it detract from booking if I wanted to do it? No. But it does spoil it a little. It’s an all-senses experience I wanted for the first time being present, not at my desk.
Thanks Vicky, you make a good point about getting across an experience versus spoiling it. As someone who hasn’t climbed Kilimanjaro, the only thing I would say is that Tourdust has somehow managed to portray some of the emotion – rare in online travel!
Thanks Vicky, I take it as a huge complement that it achieves a sense of experience as this was always my objective, but you raise a fascinating point.
Sadly I can only see this going one way, there must be thousands of youtube videos and wartsnall blog posts about climbing Kili out there and in some ways I guess this can take away from the feeling of discovery. There does seem though to be a majority of travel researchers with a never-ending hunger for more and more pre-trip information. It might not always be a bad thing either, in the case of Kili, it could be rather useful that people have a good idea of what they are letting themselves in for.
I suppose, rather in the same way as movie reviewers have a responsibility not to give away plot spoilers, so those of us writing about travel need to leave some things to the imagination?
Hi Ben, yes was indeed meant as a compliment! Practically, information in all types of media will increasingly be out there for those who seek so as an adventure loving gal, I do like your last suggestion