Lausanne Tourism - Plan Your Trip

Assist travelers in the best possible way in planning their stay in Lausanne.

Context

Lausanne Tourism was founded in 1887 to promote the city of Lausanne, both in Switzerland and abroad, and to provide good welcoming conditions to visitors. This is done with the support and collaboration of the Lausanne authorities and its tourist partners. Lausanne, the capital of the Canton of Vaud and the 4th largest city in Switzerland, shines with its dynamism and openness, in terms of economy, culture, sports, and academia.

The recent international health crisis has greatly restricted the possibilities of traveling abroad during holidays and/or weekends. Swiss incoming tourism, and more specifically Lausanne in this example, has therefore been affected in 2020-2021. The health situation has limited the possibilities for the Lausanne destination to shine on the cultural and sports scene. Furthermore, competition in terms of tourism remains strong at the national level.

In 2022, with the health situation improved significantly in Switzerland, prospects for a return to normal are also being felt. Lausanne Tourism has already been collaborating with our teams on various web and marketing projects since 2017, so we were mandated with a new project beginning in 2022, in order to contribute to the improvement of online support for tourists and travelers who wish to discover or rediscover the Olympic Capital, by offering them a ready-made stay program, tailored to their needs.

Expertises

ConceptionMaintenance & Support

See the Plan Your Trip platform

Objectives

The role of our team in this project is to create a digital tool to maximize the influx of tourists in the region, by encouraging the discovery of the Lausanne destination over several days and thus contributing to the prosperity of local tourism providers.

Through this new platform, Lausanne Tourism aims to give visibility to its destination by highlighting its many attractions suitable for all tastes, while facilitating the choice of travelers in their user journey and their travel organization.

The objectives of this digital tool are as follows:

Link the different online offer ecosystems of Lausanne Tourism already existing to present them in a grouped and relevant way in the user journey
Accompany the traveler in the optimal planning of his stay
Inspire the traveler by offering a panel of experiences and services that match his needs
Promote the available restaurants in the destination
Boost hotel reservations and experiences offered by the city
Collect additional and relevant practical data on user profiles.

Our approach

To successfully complete this project, we collaborated closely with Lausanne Tourism's web and communication departments. Together, we imagined and developed the "Plan Your Trip" inspiration engine by proposing the structure, development, and management of the tool, while receiving content from the client. Our role was also to provide technical consulting to answer the client's questions and explain how the tool works throughout the project.

To meet the varied needs of users, we developed 2 tool options:

Pre-assembled and pre-made travel planning proposals by Lausanne Tourism
A multi-step question journey that allows for a personalized planning proposal based on the user's preferences and profile.

Our basic assumption was that many tourists are interested in discovering Lausanne, but they don't always know where to start when organizing their stay in the Olympic Capital. The goal was therefore to best assist the user in their research by asking relevant questions about their traveler profile and desires, to quickly and automatically create a program that suits them.

The crucial point of this collaboration was to create a platform that could link all the relevant elements of Lausanne Tourism's web ecosystem, in order to present them to the user at the right moment to better convert them. Taking into account the traveler's profile and travel dates, our team developed a tool that collects, presents, and directs the user to all the available offers associated with their stay, by creating a complete schedule.

The challenge faced by Lausanne Tourism was then to regularly control and update the availability and schedules of the different services (accommodations, restaurants, cultural sites, tours, experiences) to offer a credible and correct program to the traveler according to their stay dates, and thus avoid unpleasant surprises on site.

To encourage the user to convert, relevant promotional offers highlighting local tourism providers are also offered in parallel to their stay schedule to complete their stay offer.

Résultats

With the development of this travel companion, now available on the Lausanne Tourism website, the user experience of tourists seeking inspiration for their stay has been improved. Indeed, the platform allows the user to easily communicate their preferences to receive personalized recommendations that match their needs and travel settings, such as travel dates and number of travelers. Tourists' interests are now at the center of the tool and their desires are taken into account. Among the many service options offered by the city, each person can quickly and easily find what suits them.

The automatically designed stay programs allow visitors to fill their days by proposing activities and restaurants for each part of the day. The organization of travelers is then simplified thanks to the expert advice provided. In addition, travelers can print their personalized program or access it via a unique QR code to consult it during their stay. The service is therefore turnkey.