A marketplace that lets guests build their own holiday

They have a wide range of offerings, and at the moment they simplify that by creating curated packages such as Stay & Play, Stay & Event and Daycation.

But a survey run by the team showed that guests wanted more options, offers, discounts and flexibility when booking, and that this would bring them back to book again. So the marketplace made three promises: everything the destination has to offer in one place, smart discounts, and the freedom to build your own trip.

• Stay & Play
• Daycation
• Stay & Event

I started with a benchmark to understand where the client sat against its competitors, and what the client wanted to achieve following their survey.

I benchmarked and identified unique offerings and best in class features from 15 other leading brands similar to the client, across three groups: online travel and booking sites, theme park and destination sites, and experiential websites.

To avoid bias, I scored every feature using the UX Honeycomb. Each feature was rated against five qualities that are critical to the success of a product, and the sum of all five gave its overall score in the feature matrix.

I refined 8 initial personas down to the 4 that shaped the main journeys: the Leisure Traveller, the Deal Hunter, the Value Seeker and the Event Pilgrim. Each journey followed the guest from deciding on a trip, through booking and payment, all the way to the emails they receive before their visit.

• Decision making
• Pre booking
• Booking
• Payment
• Confirmation
• Pre visit

I ran a card sort to test the words guests expect to see. When asked where they would click first to book a hotel, a theme park and some activities, guests leaned clearly towards a few familiar categories.

• Tickets
• Stay
• Experiences
• Packages
• Add Ons
• Bundles✕ (not used)
• Combo Deals✕ (not used)

The client was very keen on one main booking widget and wanted it to be the highlight of the site. We agreed it mattered, but it couldn't be the only way to book. Guests arrive from search, social, email and AI tools, and often land deep inside the site rather than on the homepage.

So alongside the main widget, we designed in page widgets and booking journeys for each type of page. Wherever a guest came from or landed, they could start booking right there, and keep adding as much as they wanted to one trip.

The 4 main journeys came out of my earlier research, refined from the 8 initial personas so I could target guests more precisely.

1. 8initial personas
2. 4main journeys
3. 10major customer flows

From these, I created 10 major customer flows based on the products the client had and wanted to sell, such as booking an event, a luxury holiday or a Stay & Play package. The journeys captured what guests needed, and the detailed flows mapped those needs against the business requirements.

The user flows identified the different paths, entry points and changes I wanted to make to the existing website.

• Theme park
• Experience
• Daycation
• Hotel
• Stay and play package
• Event
• Event holiday
• Rental car
• Build your own package
• Add ons

Alongside the flows, I put together the client's first product catalogue, with defined mapping and hierarchy. Bundles covered staycations, daycations and build your own, and products covered solo products, upsells and upgrades. Using the flows and the catalogue, I created a before and after sitemap showing the page level updates required, so the layout of the site was mapped before any design work began.

A big part of this was figuring out where each new feature, like build your own package and the itinerary builder, should sit on the existing website, so it felt natural to find and met the client's goals. The updated navigation brought these in alongside Extras and add ons, and split Stay into clearer groups of hotels.

Most of my time went into the UX file, working through each flow in rounds. I explored options, walked the client through them, refined them based on their feedback and repeated until each flow was signed off.

Patterns for a consistent experience

With so many different products to book, consistency mattered. I researched how leading booking sites handle things like date pickers, guest selection and carts, then used the same patterns across every journey.

• One widget structure that adapts to each product type, from theme parks to hotels to events.
• The same date and guest pickers across every journey, so nothing has to be learned twice.
• One cart and checkout for everything a guest adds to their trip.

This was the heart of the marketplace. Guests choose what they want to include, such as accommodation, theme parks, experiences, attractions, tours and flights, and build their trip step by step.

• Accommodation
• Theme parks
• Experiences & events
• Attractions
• Tours
• Flights

Guests could build an itinerary through a short wizard covering duration, experiences, guests and dining, then review, edit, replace or remove items before confirming and starting to book.

The marketplace hasn't launched yet, so rather than guess at numbers, here is what the work delivered and what the client signed off.

Leading brands benchmarked

15

Customer journeys and 10 customer flows signed off by the client

4

Product catalogue for the client, with mapping, hierarchy and sitemap

1st