[highlight]Tongabezi[/highlight] is a romantic, luxury lodge perched on the banks of the Zambezi River, a short distance upstream from the magnificent Victoria Falls. Unashamedly indulgent, the lodge recently swept up an award by Travel and Leisure as the [highlight]5th best safari lodge in Africa[/highlight]. The lodge has been a favourite WildWeb client for over ten years so we were ecstatic to hear the news. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect either as we had just launched their new, redesigned website a few short weeks before.
WildWeb’s lead developer, Jono, describes the process of bringing this amazing property to life through a website makeover:
The Visit
There are definitely perks to working at WildWeb, and a trip to Tongabezi Lodge and Sindabezi Island is one that I will not soon forget. I gained an amazing degree of insight by visiting this client lodge of ours. My office during my time there saw me working from a small desk overlooking the Zambezi as their resident hippo, Horace, puffed his nostrils up a few meters away. This certainly inspired the soul.
How we did it
Tongabezi spans over three locations -Tongabezi Lodge, Sindabezi Island, and the Tangala House. Each boasts multiple chalets and houses with their own personality. That’s quite a lot to get across in one go, so we needed to not just update the visual component of the website, but also the content and page structure to give the user breathing room to take it all in.
We designed a user journey of discovery, encouraging users to explore the site. This has the effect of increasing on-site time and increases visitor engagement and enquiries.
We also heavily showcased the fantastic photography Tongabezi has accumulated over the years. The result is a website dripping with gorgeous imagery; content which is easy to understand, and a site that inspires the would-be traveller to add the Victoria Falls and Tongabezi to their personal travel bucket list.
We absolutely love the [highlight]end result[/highlight] and would jump on a plane any day to visit their private Zambezi River hideaway. Would you?
P.S. You can follow Jono and his working holiday adventures on [highlight]Instagram[/highlight].