Quesnel Tourism

The City's existing website was slow and cumbersome for users and was not scalable while keeping a consistent look and function. They wanted a new website that had an intuitive design, logical menu, and seamlessly work with the City's brand guidelines. The City also had some unique functionality they envisioned for their new website to ensure it provided a lot of value to their users. Lastly, the City's staff needed a content management system (CMS) that could be easily updated and managed by their internal team. 

We developed the website on the Drupal CMS, a system that their team can easily edit and update content. It was built with their internal workflows in mind to ensure it created efficiencies for their team (e.g., user permissions, content reviewing and publishing workflows, etc.). This system is also scalable and will be able to grow with the City as they become a hosting community.  

The City liked the design of their previous site but needed better functionality. We pulled design elements from their previous site to keep the same feel that aligned with their branding guidelines. For example, we included their brand colours, typography, photography direction, and topography graphics in the new website. 

Upanup worked closely with their team to meet each of the functionality requirements and bring their visions to life. We were very focused on the end-users' experience and how to provide tools and functions that would be highly valuable to them and create efficiencies. For example, our development team created a "Plan My Trip" tool that allows visitors to plan every detail of their trip to Quesnel. 

Their new website is very user-focused, making it easy for users to quickly and efficiently find the information they are searching for. The many unique tools throughout the site encourage people to visit the area and work towards the City's goal of being a hosting community. As of the end of September 2021, the new website had seen a large increase in traffic compared to the old site. There had been a 440% increase in the number of monthly website sessions the month following the launch when compared to the final month pre-launch (June 2021).

The new website has many unique features to provide users with an optimal experience: 

• Suggested Itineraries - provides users options based on the season of their visit, duration of their trip, and type of trip they are looking to have. These user inputs would then populate a suggested itinerary with times and links to each activity. 
• Homepage Video - a City-curated YouTube video has been directly embedded into the homepage to give visitors a taste of what Quesnel has to offer. 
• Plan & Host My Events - similar to "Plan My Trip," users can answer various questions and receive recommendations for venues that meet their needs. 
• Submit My Event - local residents and businesses can submit their events directly on the website to then be approved by City staff before being posted to the site for public viewing.  
• Featured Local Recommendations - a homepage feature, where visitors can get the inside scoop on local favourites to complete their Quesnel experience. 

The City also recently launched their event calendar so users can now submit events for review directly on the site and view all of the past and upcoming events!