How VanSite is using By The Ways to increase bookings and compete in a booming market
COMPANY
VanSite is the leading booking platform for natural campsites in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. These unique “almost wild campsites” are typically located at farms and wineries.
Challenge: Competing in a booming market
The interest in camping is at its high. And the German travel startup VanSite has been able to successfully meet the growing demand.
The company has been pioneering a new movement by offering so called natural campsites for those traveling in vans or campers. On its platform users can find and book micro camping spots and spend the night in their vans on wide-open fields or in the vineyards of a local winemaker. This, is as close as you can get to wild camping in Europe, at least legally.
However, this booming market is recently attracting new players. Thus, putting VanSite under pressure to keep its leading market position.
“I think, by the ways is definitely going to change the way we search for travel info. It's incredible how this tool simplifies complicated trip planning into a more natural experience. I'm really excited to collaborate with the team on fresh ideas.”
Maximilian Buschmeyer CEO and founder VanSite
Goal: Deliver a better search experience
VanSite jointly developed a strategy with us to leverage the power of the By The Ways software. The first step was testing the effectiveness of the new search option along the route:
➜ show users only relevant spots along their individual routes
➜ let users explore and book camping spots for the entire lenghts of the trip
➜ impress users with a new, intuitive search experience
How they did it
Feature #1: Along the route
User enters trip details (e.g. Berlin - Ljublijana). The map view allows users to explore all relevant campsite spots along the route.
Feature #2: Detours
With more relevant results, users are more likely to convert.
Thus, we display travel times to every campsite on the search result page in order to create a highly personalised search experience. Users can compare campsites based on travel time. For car travelers this is one of the best ways to filter out irrelevant results.
Feature #3: Booking
A single tap on the campsite preview takes users to the detail page so they can book the spot through VanSite.
Next steps: Reengage with existing customers
VanSite is planning to test By The Ways newest feature curated trips - a tool that helps create inspiring road trip recommendations without the need to hire a team of copywriters.
This way, customers can visit the VanSite platform to explore trip ideas and book camping spots - all in one step. The goal is to make VanSite the very first step in the trip planning process. Not the last one. Also this is the first step to building a community of camping enthusiasts sharing trips recommendations.
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