160,000 smiling faces.
This project was done while at Catch New York. Catch New York is Curaçao's Agency of Record. The team members who contributed to this project worked at Catch New York at the time of launch.
160,000 smiling faces. That's just one of the many ways to describe this Caribbean island. A unique blend of Latin American, European, and African heritage shows that Curaçaoans personify hospitality.
From the moment you step foot on the island, you start to feel the "real" Caribbean. A destination not crowded by tourists, you experience the multitude of cultures that make up this nation - it's history, cuisine, music, lifestyle, architecture, and, most importantly, it's people. If you were to ask us for one word to describe Curaçao, it would be authentic.
This project is the story of capturing the authenticity of a country, the story of discovering a way as unique as this island to make the rest of the world see and experience it's culture and pride. It is also the story of facing an enormous challenge because showcasing a nation placed the weight of doing justice to Curaçao, and it's people, on our shoulders ... This is the story of building the new, global Curacao.com.
The campaign.
Off of the northern coast of Venezuela and part of the Dutch Antilles, Curaçao is a member of the ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao), the largest of the three in both landmass and population. Birthplace to some of the most famous baseball players in the world, Curaçao is much more than the 35 beautiful beaches that circumference the island. From hiking to diving, this island offers something for everyone.
Before the team started working on the website, Curaçao's Agency of Record, Catch New York, developed two campaigns that introduced Curaçao to the world. Extensive research was conducted to truly understand what made Curaçao unique in the eyes of both its people and its visitors. One common thread started to show stronger and stronger throughout our discovery, people describing the island as "raw" or "the true Caribbean."
It was a sentiment that those who had previously visited the island couldn't fully verbalize. Curaçao is a place you need to feel for yourself, words alone do not suffice to describe the experience. This insight was transformed into a global campaign and built the foundation for creating a new website.
On island exploration.
The existing research allowed the team to create initial hypotheses for the site's information architecture setup. However, to stay true to our own words, the team needed to "experience Curaçao for ourselves" to capture the island's essence on the site.
The week in Curaçao was spent absorbing as much of the culture as one could. Our goals went further than the experience. It was the first time for us as a product design team working hand-in-hand with the developers from Deloitte Digital Amsterdam, the agency hired by the CTB for the site development. New teams collaborating on any project requires adjusting to personalities and work cultures; particularly for a website built of this scale, meeting face-to-face from day one was instrumental in establishing trust and transparent processes.
Our week consisted of several workshops with members of the CTB, other on-island stakeholders, Deloitte, and Catch. By the end, the project goals were defined and the foundation for a successful professional relationship was built.
Focus on content.
Content is everywhere. But until then, Curaçao had not created original content. So, the goal was to build out a robust content library.
Complement ... don’t compete.
Official tourism websites are only one source consumers utilize to research a vacation. Instagram, blogs, and TripAdvisor are other critical sources for inspiration and information. Instead of competing with these platforms, the team had to identify ways to differentiate the content that lives on these platforms while still complimenting them.
Personalization.
Personalization takes time. Gathering and analyzing data to create custom user segments take time. While acknowledging personalizing the site dynamically would not happen overnight, the team still set out to create the foundation that allowed Curaçao to do so down the road.
Involve on-island and off-island partners.
There are many stakeholders when it comes to running tourism for a country. The government, local tourism offices, the hospitality industry, airlines, and trade tourism representatives are just a few. Being on the island proved crucial in getting to know the different stakeholders and learning about their needs, allowing us to bring various interests and voices together.
Classifying page types.
Back at the office, inspiration, sketches, and ideas were shared daily. Purposely going back and forth allowed the team to classify the page types into two categories: emotional and functional.
Functional pages target consumers who have decided to visit Curaçao, either preparing for their trip or already enjoying the island. These pages are informational and easy to navigate, addressing places to stay, activities, and local customs. With a consistent, clear content hierarchy and categorization, consumers can seamlessly find what they are looking for.
- Homepage
- Why Curaçao
- Itineraries
- Original Content
- Things To Do
- Where To Stay
- Visitor Information
- Events
- News
The new Curacao.com.
Catch New York launched Curacao.com in six languages, and to the delight of everyone working on the project, it received incredible feedback from on-island stakeholders. They all felt the site captured the essence of Curaçao and positioned it to be a prominent destination for Caribbean vacation seekers. It was an incredibly proud moment, launching the nation's digital destination that welcomed the team with open arms.
Key Decisions
Scalability.
From day one, the site had to be built for scale. The team decided to build it using React for the frontend, Contentful for the CMS, and Netlify for hosting. This meant giving the CTB the flexibility to build upon the initial infrastructure, whether new features, third-party integrations, or additional content.
Trust
A healthy designer-developer relationship is paramount to building a successful product, and bringing the teams together for the project kick-off established mutual respect and trust for everyone's domain expertise.
Localization
Our strategy from day one was to localize the content for the respective markets. This meant making sure the copy translated contextually for their global markets.
Reflections.
Working with key stakeholders across three countries was a great learning experience. It pushed the team to be completely transparent with everyone, regardless if they were from "our" company or "their" company. That doesn't mean we're not transparent when not working across teams, it just means that establishing this as a principle from day one created an environment of "we" and not "you," putting the responsibility of this project on everyone's shoulders. It wasn't always easy, and there were bumps along the way, but the team set aside any differences and focused on the greater task, launching the best product for the island of Curaçao.