Project Overview
Nestled in thick forest on the side of Mount Paul, and surrounded by protected National Park land, Freycinet Resort offers a private, peaceful and luxurious experience in the Tasmanian east coast.
As the only accommodation on the mountain, Freycinet Resort is able to offer unparalleled 360-degree views that encompass The Hazards, Friendly Beaches, Great Oyster Bay and the Tasman Sea.
Freycinet Resort offers a range of boutique, eco-certified accommodation with contemporary design and exceptional comfort. The unique location of the resort makes it a perfect choice for thrill seekers and chill seekers. Guests seeking peace and privacy are welcome to relax and reconnect with nature, while those who are keen to explore can enjoy adventures and attractions just a short drive away.
Our team at Relab was engaged to; firstly, refresh the Brand and; secondly, create a website experience that tells the Freycinet Resort unique story.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Product Owners - Tom Yang, Max Wang
Creative Direction - Alvin Hermanto
Project & Account Management - Alvin(Didi) Sumardi, Lillian Callaghan
Design - Jessica Chairil
Front End (Technical Design) - Sam Sui, Glory Wiguno
Digital Strategy & SEO Consultant - Andrew Mugerwa
Photography & Video - Stuart Gibson
Copywriting - Ruth Dawkins
Project Brief
Upon completing the Freycinet Resort brand identity refresh, the team at Relab was tasked to redesign and build Freycinet Resort’s new website experience. The brand required for a strong emphasis on Freycinet's natural beauty highlights, while telling a story in a sophisticated way, that it encourages users to book a stay at the resort. The Tasmanian Coles Bay unique offering as well as the tranquility of the area became an inspiration for the website execution.
Although a legacy site was available, the business decided to start the website from scratch rather than optimising the old site as an opportunity to strengthen the brand message as well as improving user experience and digital strategy performance. A seamless integration with the third party online booking system was needed and the ability to scale the website for content marketing purposes was critical. In addition to these, great quality on Front End and Interaction design was highly required to support the brand's positioning as a premium and exclusive accommodation provider.
Project Need
Prior to the website project, our design team at Relab was involved in the redesign of the Freycinet Resort brand identity. This gave us the leverage of already understanding the brand DNA of the company along with its values. Equipped with these in mind, we commenced our website design and development by identifying user goals, mapping a typical customer journey, and a facilitation of 'lightning talks' by the clients on examples of other websites they like.
To enable the team to innovate within the intersection of the business' and users' needs, we proposed for a collaborative working environment, in which the product owners (clients) were involved throughout the process, particularly on key milestones like Wireframe demos, Concept Demos, Visual Design Rollout Demos, Front End Interaction Demos and Admin Management Demos – all with the user mindset, to ensure user goals are met.
The key need in this project was to create a scalable digital platform for users to easily access, engage and make room bookings, that allows Freycinet Resort to build an ongoing digital marketing strategy for the long term – while expressing the area's tranquil and serene unique proposition.
User Experience
Through a simple and methodical work process that was carried since the project Discovery all the way through to Design, Development and Deployment, the team constantly assess the progress through rigorous rounds of testing, demo and iterations, that brought us to the successful launch of the new Freycinet Resort website.
Overall, the user experience highlights on the ease of use and accessibility features of the site. The Freycinet Resort website was designed with a Light & Dark theme in mind, where the website changes its overall colour theme depending on the time of the day. Dark is set for evening access and Light is set for day access. Users are still able to control the theme with a simple switch on the website's footer. Along with best practice design and presentation of information hierarchy, these features were intended for a great reading experience on digital screens no matter where and when the website is being accessed.
Key navigation elements are easy to find, also with thoughtful presentation of information hierarchy. Components are designed and grouped in a way so that it makes sense to the general public. Use of space and carefully designed page layouts throughout the website are all in line with the aim to provide a great browsing ambience, while telling a unique story of Freycinet Resort.
These experiences are all design decisions made consistent with the Freycinet Resort brand approach.
Project Marketing
The launch of the new Freycinet Resort website has opened up numerous marketing opportunities and avenues for the business, which includes content marketing strategies, social media, email campaigns and ppc campaigns.
Upon launch, further SEO optimisation strategy has also been applied increasing website load performance and organic traffic. Satisfactory feedback had also been gathered directly from the local Freycinet community.
More marketing engagement on future releases and features are in planning, to support Freycinet Resort's online strategy in increasing returned users and direct bookings, where the main website should drive more sales than any other third party online booking provider.
Project Privacy
Freycinet Resort is committed to providing quality services and respect how Personal Information are being managed.
Freycinet Resort adopts the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (the Privacy Act). The NPPs govern the way in which Personal Information are collected, used, disclosed, stored, secured and disposed.
A copy of the Australian Privacy Principles may be obtained from the website of The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at www.oaic.gov.au.
Digital - Entertainment & Leisure
Digital services have overtaken entertainment and leisure. They influence what and how we watch or listen to, where and how we eat, dine and play, how we book and how we interact before during and after entertainment events. We're looking for nominations that make entertainment even more entertaining.
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