Creating a platform for booking tours Discover Georgia





About project

Georgia is an incredibly picturesque country that attracts tourists from all over the world. As a result, there are many tour agencies available. Most of them specialize in group tours and operate from small kiosks located in the city center alongside thousands of other similar companies.

Georgia offers a wide range of beautiful places and recreational activities. Visitors can explore mountains, visit ancient fortresses, or embark on backpacking adventures.

However, with group excursions, it can be challenging to experience the entire country. As a tourist, you have little control over the itinerary, as you are often accompanied by 50 other individuals on a bus.



The problem

Discovery Georgia is being created under the leadership of a Georgian tour guide who has been conducting individual tours for over 8 years. He specializes in single-day excursions to the mountains, showcases ancient mountain villages in multi-day tours, organizes beautiful weddings, and unforgettable Georgian corporate events.

Despite his extensive experience, the guide relied solely on word-of-mouth recommendations, and he did not have a platform to further develop his business.

He did not know which audience he wanted to work for and which tours were offered on the site. My task was to identify the target audience of his tours and their interests, to make a website that will help people choose unique tours for themselves.

Target audience

To identify the target audience, I conducted research among the guide's acquaintances to determine which countries the majority of tourists came from. The list, in descending order, includes:

1. Russia
2. Belarus, Ukraine
3. UAE
4. Israel

Based on this information, we decided to focus on the Russian-speaking audience for two reasons:

1. Few guides are proficient in English.
2. Slavic tourists account for over 70% of individuals booking individual tours.

Since 2022, Georgia has seen an influx of IT professionals, primarily aged 20 to 40. I conducted a survey among this audience to understand their experience with tours in Georgia, their impressions, and what types of tours they felt were lacking.

Based on the survey results, I made several observations:

• Individuals in this audience have been on various types of tours, both group and individual.
• They find group tours monotonous and seek activities such as hiking, rafting, and visiting local families for traditional feasts. Essentially, they want to explore beyond the typical tourist destinations.
• Many are not interested in detailed historical explanations during tours. They prefer a fun atmosphere and the ability to customize the tour route.
• They are willing to pay for unique experiences.
• They have a strong sense of community and recommend exceptional guides to their friends.
• Georgia has a significant number of IT companies, and they are interested in organizing outdoor corporate events with traditional Georgian feasts.
• Expatriates often have friends and family visiting, whom they refer to familiar guides for individual tours.

Competitors

Many tour companies in Georgia do not have websites or mobile applications. Some rely solely on Instagram pages. As a result, people have grown accustomed to searching for entertainment options in Georgia not only through search engines but also on social media platforms. Therefore, I am working on creating content for social media platforms. We plan to launch advertising campaigns on these platforms approximately one month after the website's launch.

Among the existing websites, two competitors stand out:

1. georgiatravel.meThis website does not provide tour prices; they are marked as dashes. Moreover, there is no information about the guides, which raises concerns about the company's credibility. While the website contains extensive information about contracts and payment methods, there is a lack of photographs capturing people's emotions. Excursions can only be selected from a predefined catalog, with no option to create custom tours or organize special events.
2. premier-tour.geThis website offers a catalog of pre-designed tours and provides detailed itineraries for each one. However, there are no photos depicting the actual experience during these tours. Testimonials are presented as screenshots from Telegram, which also lack photographs of individuals who enjoyed their travels.

Product ideas

After the analysis, we established the following objective:

Create a website with a catalog of individual tours and compelling advantages.

Specifically, the objectives include:

• Live chat on the website and links to the chat on social media platforms to allow users to ask any questions.
• Tour builder tool, enabling tourists who have seen it all to create their own personalized itineraries.
• Executive's Choice tour option for those who prefer the guide to design an interesting route.

Additional task: Design a company logo and marketing materials to develop Instagram and Telegram pages.

Logo

What comes to mind when we think of Georgia? It's the mountains, the sea, and the Georgian flag. Therefore, most logos incorporate these symbols, making them all look similar.

I thought about other objects that are associated with this country. These include the kvevri (traditional Georgian wine vessels) and mountain roads.

Kvevri is a vessel used to produce authentic Georgian wine since ancient times. Wine is an integral part of the country's culture and heritage. Once you visit Georgia and experience the taste of wine from a kvevri, it becomes an unforgettable memory.

With this in mind, I decided to combine these two iconic symbols of the country to create a unique and distinctive logo.



Testing the prototype

I created a rough prototype of the website, taking into account all the developed advantages. The prototype was tested with our target audience, and the hypothesis proved to be correct. Unusual excursions, some of which are not offered by competitors, the tour builder feature, and the ability to create events for large groups are what attracted and interested people.

Next, I refined the concept. Below is an example of the flow from the final designs.



User interface

Here are the designs of the main screens of the website.







Result

• In the first month after the website launch, the number of corporate clients tripled.
• Profits increased because previously, excursions were booked through the external platform Tripster. Moving users to our own service eliminated the need to pay a 20% commission to Tripster on each excursion.

Where can you see it?

The site has not been published yet. In the future, you will be able to find it by following the link https://discover-georgia.com/ / https://discover-georgia.ru/