Some of our readers and clients will know; we were planning to launch our renewed website sometime around March 2024, and had announced as such last year. We’re past our self-induced deadline for about six months, but we’re finally there!

Designing a storefront that is informative, easy to navigate and simply “to the point” proved to be a harder task than anticipated, since operations were also being redesigned in a post-COVID world. However, the answer was actually very easy and in front of us all along: simplicity.

Over the years, with the rapid development of the web, travel industry has also seen a boom in travel technologies; so much that it became impossible to track every new IT company that popped into existence. Booking engines, B2B panels, API connectors, complex payment systems, automated confirmations, you name it; all these features were seen as a “must” for any tour operator or travel agency to have.

Since sometime around the years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic, the trend had started to shift back into simplicity, and for the better! Even giant GDS companies such as Sabre and Travelport, known to operate with ancient terminals that simply required special training and years of practice to use, were starting to make the switch over to simpler graphical user interfaces.

We tried to go with this approach and went away with the exceedingly complex booking engines that simply don’t work as intended, have poor frontend design, swallow hundreds of hours of manpower trying to populate them with boring stock images, just to look “generic” at the very end again.

The past few months has also seen a boom in AI technology, which also flooded the internet with articles that are just rehashed information written in an annoyingly flawless fashion. Just as the “dead internet theory” suggests, most information that is within our reach has started to be produced by AI, promoted by algorithms driven by AI and interacted with by bots, which are simply rudimentary forms of AI.

I personally believe that people have already started to notice what’s genuine human effort and what’s an AI fabrication, so they will actively seek human generated content, even if it takes more time and effort to create.

The yearning for simplicity combined with the search of a genuine human touch will undoubtedly reshape the travel industry in the near future. Travelers, who have been forced to horribly designed booking engines used by nobody and being fed rehashed or copy-pasted information over and over again, will most definitely start to seek bespoke services more often.

Looking ahead, we are excited about the future possibilities of our travel offerings. Stay tuned for updates by visiting our “News” section or subscribing to our newsletter.

Good to see you here, please extend your stay. Happy browsing!