Explore Worldwide had a requirement to rebuild their website which was built on an old CMS system and didn't provide them with any opportunities for future growth or modernisation. We have worked with Explore for a number of years, so we were delighted to take on the mammoth task of moving their current system over to a more open framework for future development.

With an extremely tight timescale, and with limited budget we created a highly bespoke solution for managing the content on the website whilst bringing the content of their Trip Notes, which were once stored as Desktop Publishing Files into a database, which has significantly reduced the amount of work involved in the creation and maintenance of these files. The system generates these using a PDF creation tool meaning the latest information is always available to the end user in whichever format they prefer.

SEO is key in the highly competitive Adventure Travel Market, so we developed highly optimisable landing pages for all of the tours, and an optimised framework for the static pages, which has meant a significant uplift in traffic from non-branded seo terms and the long tail with as little effort required from staff as possible. In addition, the use of related articles (based on keyword) around the site brings the content into the products and vice-versa, improving both customer experience and SEO potential.

We also manage the hosting of Explore's website, using multiple dedicated servers, and load balancers, the site is able to cope with the significant amounts of traffic placed on them. Unplanned down time has been negligable with redundancy built into the system and effective techniques for managing the roll out of code employed.

The website delivers industry leading conversion rates, and online bookings representing revenue in the multi-millions of pounds.

Technologies Employed:

• Joomla! CMS core
• PHP
• MySQL
• SOLR Indexing (providing faceted search)
• PrinceXML PDF generation for trip notes
• Geo Location for providing relevant content
• Multi Domain, Multi Language content
• Load balanced Apache servers
• Social Media Integration
• Content + API integration (for news feeds)
• Agent Community functionality
• Google Map integraion
• Advanced custom image management
• Advanced Caching
• Bespoke Online Booking system
• Outbound API for feeding holiday information to travel agents
• Linux (Development / Production Servers)
• ANT (Build Scripts)
• SVN (Version Control)