Project Overview
Roam is a travel tech platform for Australia's destination marketers.
The team behind Roam have worked in the travel and tourism space for over ten years, creating award-winning sites for Qantas Holidays, Abercrombie & Kent, Destination Melbourne and many more. After identifying a gap in the market, the team conducted extensive research and consultation with the industry to develop a digital solution: Roam.
Roam is a destination marketing platform that creates best-in-class websites at a cost-effective price. The platform gives Destination marketing organisations (DMOs) a powerful and flexible tool while delivering a fantastic experience to the end-user.
Roam is a Software as a Service (SAAS) platform, with an annual subscription fee ensuring Roam sites receive feature updates and site upgrades as the product roadmap develops.
Roam sites come with integrations that enhance the user experience of travel & tourism sites. Tourism bodies can communicate a rich story and save time with Australian Tourism Data Warehouse (ATDW), Algolia search, Zomato & Instagram integrations. The platform allows a high level of bespoke customisation so that no two tourism sites look the same.
Example:
https://www.melbournenow.com.au/
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Mack Nevill (Founder & Creative Director)
Romain Palmas (Lead Developer)
Matt Cordell (Developer)
Andrew Tesdorpf (Designer)
Antony Corrales (PM)
Project Brief
After building websites for travel and tourism clients for over a decade, we identified a need for a DMO-focused platform that delivered a comprehensive set of tools and features for the destination marketer in one package.
It seemed like many of the sites had an identical set of needs and functionality. Each site had unique qualities, but we were essentially rebuilding the same backend with a different face. Surely we could turn this truth into value for cash-strapped tourism organisations and positively influence the tourism economy.
To develop a digital solution for DMO’s and tourism organisations it would have to meet the following objectives:
1. Create world-class websites to increase visibility and interest in destinations
2. Have customisable design features to match a brand’s look and feel
3. Deliver a comprehensive feature set for destination marketers
4. Save time and reduce the effort in delivering and maintaining a DMO website
5. An approach to billing that fits the modality of DMO funding
Project Need
The travel & tourism industry in Australia has long struggled to build effective, user-centred, websites that integrate with ATDW and provide user-friendly and powerful search experiences. Websites for smaller destinations were often poorly designed, buggy, and updated infrequently or not at all.
We identified a need for a platform that could create travel and tourism websites in a time and cost-effective fashion, along with rich data integrations with ATDW, Algolia, Zomato and Instagram. Backed by our expertise in architecting and delivering world-class, high traffic websites, Roam sites are hosted on state-of-the-art AWS (Amazon Web Services) infrastructure that provides a highly scalable, secure, and reliable platform with a 99.9% uptime guarantee.
User Experience
The Roam platform is for DMOs and tourism organisations.
Roam delivers a comprehensive feature set
-Users can curate operator and event listings from 40,000+ ATDW listings within the platform, as well as creating custom listings - saving time and driving conversions.
-Instagram integration creates a rich source of authentic content baked into the platform.
-Algolia integration gives users a lightning-fast and predictive search experience.
-Intuitive content management makes it easy to create and publish content.
-Roam integrates with MailChimp and Campaign Monitor to grow opt-in email databases.
-Built-in SEO drives organic traffic through metadata and open graph.
Roam develops a roadmap of features in consultation with the DMO community.
Roam fits into users' budgets
-The SAAS product pricing structure is designed to fit within the marketing budget of tourism organisations. A small upfront and annual subscription fee keep each website ahead of the curve in a cost-effective way.
Roam sites increase visibility, interest and bookings
-Information architecture showcases destinations and encourages exploration. Sitemaps are unique to each site but typically follow best-practice: places to go, things to do, make a plan.
-Mobile responsive page templates create a world-class experience on desktop and mobile.
-Roam is agnostic to booking platform and can accommodate listings from multiple providers (e.g. Airbnb, Bookeasy, Stayz) with ease.
-Video, breakout quotes, photo galleries and other visual features break up text and engage visitors with a destination’s story.
Project Marketing
As a newly launched product, Roam is still in the soft launch phase of its marketing plan.
Word of mouth has been our most significant marketing hit. We have secured and on-boarded several clients to the platform before active marketing campaigns have commenced.
Our Roam marketing site helps us sell the concept and build trust with potential clients. The site showcases core features and encourages lead generation through the enquiry form.
Current activities include direct communication, attendance at tourism events and engagement with the tourism industry.
Future tactics will include a mix of PR, event speaking and attendance, organic and paid media.
Project Privacy
Standard privacy procedure was followed under best practice on all contact forms and other areas of the website where personally identifiable data was collected. In addition, we ensure that no personal information is passed through Google Analytics (e.g. email addresses). Regular penetration testing is conducted to ensure the site and server are secure. The website, hosting and infrastructure pass this testing with no significant issues identified.
Digital - TravelTech
TravelTech helps us to get from A to B easier, quicker, cheaper, takes us to places far away while still sitting in our armchair, makes getting lost hard to do and informs, guides and assists. Take us on a journey with your TravelTech.
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