Travel the Unknown was set up in 2008 to offer exciting small group and tailor-made tours to destinations less readily available from mainstream tour operators. Their focus is on unique cultural experiences, and offers their customers the chance to gain a deeper understanding of local people and their daily lives, as well as the cultural, historical and political environment in which they live.
Insight:
After nearly ten years growing the business, the website needed a comprehensive redesign in order to convey the uniqueness and value of the experiences on offer, and stand out from the mainstream competition.
The sense of inspiration had been lost under the sheer volume of tours on offer, which came across more like a list than the enticing beginning of a unique journey.
Our approach:
Wild Dog’s approach began with a comprehensive overhaul of the Information Architecture. We didn’t want to reduce the amount of tours on offer, but we wanted to create more focused journeys for users; give them the chance to explore, but in a managed, curated way, to drive them through to specific tours without getting lost.
A new focus was given to ‘themes’ of holidays (e.g. Silk Road, or Tribal), and while users who knew what they were looking for were in control, curated ‘inspiration’ was highlighted to give newer visitors a sense of what was on offer.
The site needed to be visually inspiring too. A total overhaul of the images was conducted, and the new suite of photography is much higher quality, with a real emphasis on people and experience, rather than just places and buildings, to demonstrate TTU’s unique approach and access.