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GaSamen.nl

CitySupport is known as one of the Dutch specialists for city trips with websites like Parijs.nl, Barcelona.nl en Berlijn.nl. To stay on top of their game, CitySupport created a new brand called GaSamen.nl, which meant that their websites got a make-over and were enhanced to remain one of the best out there.

 

What CitySupport wanted

On every one of our 36 domain names for city trips we'd like to have one unique portal per city, and we'd like to operate those portals with just one system. Our customers need to be able to compare all the trips which the different partnering companies we work with have to offer. They should also be able to instantly book the trip of their choice. HBMEO will design the new website. We'd like to take the ranking that the old site has in search engines to the new one. Everything that linked the sites to our content, should get a logical placement on the new one.”

--- David Vaghi, Managing Partner CitySupport BV.

Our solution

The lay-out and the structure of the website had already been developed by CitySupport with HBMEO. That's why we could skip the design phase.

A nice design doesn't make sure a website will work well. Maykin Media translated the design to an operating website that looked the same in every browser. We also added extra features to enhance the design, made it more user-friendly and also faster. For example: we added a ‘slideshow' with changing pictures of the city that a particular site focussed on. We also added an overview with all the available destinations which the customer could simply extend. On top of that, we added a map which pointed out the hotels in the area.

Furthermore we developed ‘booky', an engine that's able to search for trips and is also able to book them. This engine integrates with the Content Management System. Booky communicates with the systems of CitySupport's partnering companies to detract, for example, available hotels. Booky helps the customer to make their choice step by step. Once the customer has decided to book, Booky will communicate the booking to the tour operator.

To make sure GaSamen has the same style and feel to it, GaSamen rewrites and edits the content which the different tour operators sent them. It could just be possible that whenever a tour operator changes its description of a destination, a change should also be made at GaSamen's description. Booky makes it easy for GaSamen's writers to keep track: it shows exactly what's been altered.

Maykin Media makes sure the ranking the old websites had in search engines were preserved for the new website. We also made sure existing links from other websites kept existing. We've done so by making an inventory of the ‘old' links. After that, we decided what we had to do with them in order to keep them intact. Eventually we set the web server to automatically change the old links to new ones.

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