The archipelago of the British Virgin Islands has enjoyed a lengthy renown as being one of the most beautiful collections of isles and cays anywhere in the world. Each of the more than 60 separate landfalls nestled among the surrounding deep blue Caribbean waters has its own distinct texture and character. As a visitor to BVI, you’ll discover a friendly reception, incomparable beauty, and endless adventure.
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The Challenge
The BVI team came to Cendyn with a number of creative hurdles to overcome. First and foremost, they required a new website navigation that optimized the user experience. With so much content, and an array of pages and options to explore, BVI needed a navigational system that was intuitive for new users as well as flexible enough to evolve over time without breaking.
The Approach
Compartmentalizing content to avoid visual friction was paramount to our success.
Given that BVI has something for everyone, the Cendyn team decided to take a more visual approach to inspire users toward one direction or another - depending on their specific topic of interest. We also included the ability to allow visitors to place items into a ‘Favorites’ folder. This is especially helpful for those planning multi-day itineraries.
Fluid User Experience
Building on the strong foundational information architecture for BVI, the creative team was able to string together a wide range of categories for guests to peruse. All connected and intertwined between a series of islands connected by ferries and sea planes, the guest journey had to allow for users to move forward, backwards, and sideways without getting lost.
Each section of the website was designed to inform, educate, and guide the guest to their next area of interest.
Getting Around
As a destination, the British Virgin Islands may not be familiar to many adventure-seekers. After all, not that many people could point to the BVI on a map without some additional scrutiny.
With that in mind, we decided to incorporate an interactive map accessible on both the homepage and in the global navigation. However, this is not an ordinary map, this one provides critical information to help inform a variety of travelers with a call-to-action for guests to start planning their trip. The map is sorted by ports of entry, airports, and ferry routes between the islands. Within each of those clickable islands, we also provided tips for the best beaches, experiences, stays, and local wildlife.
Making Connections
As this website was commissioned by the British Virgin Islands Board of Tourism, we also wanted to ensure that BVI businesses would have the ability to promote themselves without looking or sounding disconnected from the overall BVI aesthetic.
To accomplish this, we designed sections for “Getting Around” where guests could investigate and plan for transportation options, boating charters, activities, shopping, stay options… you name it. Each item can also be added to each user’s working itinerary list (and can be shared!).
With so much content to discover, this feature and functionality was that last piece required to make a transform a visually-striking website into a useful and powerful vacation planning tool for visitors to get the most out of their holiday.
Our Results
Unlike a hotelier website, this project’s primary goals were to improve visitor engagement on a number of levels - visitor retention, increased awareness, and establishing pathways for comprehensive marketing programs. On all fronts, the Cendyn team was able to deliver a website experience that not only inspired guests to visit the British Virgin Islands, but to keep coming back.
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A key metric for this project, improving user dwell-time & encouraging visitors to explore more content.
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We were able to increase the average user-session by 38% which can be attributed to a sophisticated content strategy and improved information architecture.
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Another key benchmark for success with this website was to encourage further engagement beyond a website that just informs and educates visitors.
