Website Design for Regional Destinations
A successful destination website must meet the needs of your ideal visitors, as well as support the goals of your destination management and marketing plans.
You may have several key visitor profiles who come to your destination, and understanding their needs is an essential first step in planning for a website that will meet and exceed their expectations.
If their expectations aren't met, they'll look elsewhere, with no guarantee of the quality of the information as you would have with your official destination website. An official "source of the truth" is essential to support your destination marketing efforts.
Recent Websites for Destinations
What should you think about when creating a new destination website?
Based on our experience, here are just a few of the areas you'll need to consider when developing your destination website. You'll save time, budget, and the risk of expensive rework if they are considered up front - something we do in the first stage of any destination website project.
- You have a licensed media library with quality images (and video ideally!) that highlights key locations and experiences in your destination
- You have up to date written copy that is suitable for the web (if not, our experienced writers can help with this)
- You have travel planning content including maps, itineraries, drive routes
- You have data from your existing website and other digital assets to provide insights into current visitor behaviour
- You have access to insights from Visitor Information Centres - especially common visitor questions and requests
- You have adequate human resources in-house to support the agency in the project
- Your in-house resources have the available time to commit to the project
- Your other stakeholders - committees, boards, industry groups - have the time and resources available to provide input
- Does your budget match your website expectations? Check our budget guide below.
- Do you have a realistic timeline available to deliver the results you're seeking?
- Do you have a realistic budget for ongoing support, content management, technical maintenance, licenses?
It is SO helpful to be clear on what success looks like before you start so that your partner agency can help you reach your goals. If you haven't considered these and other KPIs, that's ok - we can help you define the most appropriate ones for your destination marketing goals.
- Do you need to track and report on the number of website leads to your local operators?
- Do you need to build an engaged consumer database?
- Do you need to measure engagement for specific content on the website - e.g. maps, travel planning pages, blogs
- Are you running digital ad campaigns that require tracking of conversions?
- You have access to current website analytics - from Google Analytics or similar
- You have access to search engine performance of your existing website
- You have access to keyword research and search trends as relevant to your current or planned destination experiences
- You have access to any other digital marketing assets such as social media insights, email marketing data
There are many common integrations that you might consider for your destination website, all dependent upon your current and future plans. These may include:
- ATDW - the Australian Tourism Data Warehouse
- Email marketing platform - Mailchimp, HubSpot, ActiveCampaign
- Booking platforms - Bookeasy, Rezdy
- Live chat
- Payment gateways such as Stripe, eWay
- Google Tag Manager
- Google Analytics
- Meta (Facebook) conversion API
How Much Should Your Destination Website Cost?
"How much?" is often the very first question we're asked about destination websites.
As you can see from the list above, there are many factors to consider when thinking about your budget.
To assist in your high level budget planning, here are some ball park budget ranges for a typical WOOF Media destination website.
- In-depth user research, planning and prototyping
- Customised design, more interactivity
- 50+ content pages
- ATDW integration - listings, events, deals
- 3rd party integrations - email marketing, automations, bookings systems
- Interactive live dashboard to review your website KPIs
- Annual website care and management package
- Add-on options for trip planning tools, dynamic event guides
Note: If you have a large, established, content-rich but under-performing destination website then this will likely be the budget you'll need to aim for.
With a large site, managing the migration of content and looking after your SEO from old site to new is a significant amount of work and needs time and care to get it right.
- Standard level of user research, planning and prototyping
- Custom design elements
- Approximately 20-30 content pages
- ATDW integration - listings, events, deals
- 3rd party integrations - email marketing
- Interactive live dashboard to review your website KPIs
- Add-ons for trip planning tools, dynamic event guides
- Annual website care and management package
Note: If you have an established, content-rich but under-performing website then you'll likely be at the top end of this budget range. Or, if it's a brand new site with no "baggage", then you'll be at the lower-mid range of the budget.
Managing the migration of content and looking after your SEO from old site to new is a significant amount of work and needs time and care to get it right.
- Basic user research and planning
- Standard design requirements - not heavily customised
- Typically 15-20 main content pages
- ATDW integration - listings, events, deals
- Interactive live dashboard to review your website KPIs
- Annual website care and management package
What can you expect when you work with WOOF Media?
Your destination website journey with WOOF Media will start with a collaborative 'deep dive'.
We'll undertake a comprehensive audit of your existing website and digital marketing footprint. We'll unpack your visitor profiles, your destination management objectives, and any requirements for integrations or marketing systems.
Then, we'll refine our recommendations based on where your destination is at right now and your future plans. Your destination website should be a key player in your destination's marketing activities and be built to support them.
Would you like to discuss how we can help? Please get in touch via the form below or give our office a call on 1300 006 993.
How can we help?
If you value the input of professionals who love what they do and who will be fully invested in your success, then let's talk!