7 May, 2019 Connecting travellers and destinations in an innovative way Differentiating yourself in the tourism sector is not easy. Everything seems to have been invented and competition is quite high. But through digitalization and UX improvement, Izi.TRAVEL managed to take its business model to another level and become a major player in the market. What drives millions of people to travel around the world every year? The answer is simple: to discover new places, cultures, people, food and landscapes. When we travel, we want to make the most of each destination: to enjoy what we have been told about, to experience unique experiences, to explore hidden places, and even to venture into the unknown and feel that we have gone where others have never been. The key to any journey is the final connection between the destination and the person who is traveling. And this is precisely the raison d'être of Izi.TRAVEL, a global, open and free platform that connects cities, museums and stories with travellers who wanted to explore the world in a completely new and innovative way. Scaling an idea to a global level At Izi.TRAVEL, they wanted to take their free audio guide platform to the next level. A tool that allows tourists to discover the main cultural sites and other places of interest in any city in the world. The goal was to develop this platform on a large scale so that Izi.TRAVEL would become a major player in tourism content services. There were also other objectives such as: Strengthening its monetization system. Boost its business model. To this end, both the web application and its free audio guide platform were redesigned. In this evolution, the technical and functional quality was improved, while new functionalities were developed that gave a new meaning to the concept of "community of travellers". The key: User Experience In order to increase the number of visits and app downloads, it was necessary to build community loyalty. This matter meant improving the user experience. To achieve this, a digital strategy team was set up, with UX designers and members of Izi.TRAVEL, who worked on flowcharts and visual design. The result was a complete multilingual web platform, with an authenticated area with different user roles. This platform was a point of contact for travellers thanks to the publication and visualization of content. Its architecture was scalable and integrated with other systems, such as mobile applications, for both online and offline use.
