At the turn of the year, those guests and travellers interested in the events in Ventspils will be pleasantly surprised by the new look of the website visitventspils.com, as its content is now more accessible, modern, and easier to use and understand.
The website will continue functioning as the virtual embassy, providing the city guests with information on tourist attractions, accommodations, and events in the city and region of Ventspils in 8 languages. The beautiful and unique images of Ventspils complementing the content have been provided by the local photographers, while the new design and functionality of the website visitventspils.com was developed by Ventspils Tourist Information Centre, in close collaboration with the branding agency “BrandBox” and the digital agency “Caballero”.
About the website design
The Tourist Information Centre represents a city – think of it as a city’s business card. Not only does it provide contacts and information, but it also reflects the virtues of the city, provides offers to city guests, and serves as a communication channel for tourism business. The usability and content architecture of the website visitventspils.com (UX), as well as its digital design (UI) was developed by the branding agency “BrandBox” (www.brandbox.lv), offering modern and rational solutions to ensure that the website users have the best experience when visiting the website. “BrandBox” is Latvia’s largest branding agency with 19 years of experience in developing brand identity, packaging, digital environment, and design. For more information on their projects, please visit https://www.brandbox.lv/lv/projekti.
The technical solutions and programming of the website, on the other hand, are provided by the digital agency “Caballero”, which has been operating on Latvian market for 10 years and has extensive experience in the development and maintenance of various websites, portals, and web-based information systems in both the public and private sector. The agency has implemented projects for various brands, including “Opel”, “Alandeko”, “Printify”, “Supliful”, “Citrus”, “Brikers”, “Toode”, as well as bodies such as the Latvian Olympic Committee, the Ministry of Economy, the State Employment Agency, the Ministry of Culture, and many more.
About the website content
The new website contains a panorama slider with parallax images depicting the four seasons in Ventspils, thus allowing the users to immediately recognize the most popular tourist attractions in Ventspils, such as the VIZIUM Science Centre, the snow hill “Lemberga hūte”, the Blue Flag Beach, the Castle of the Livonian Order, the Concert Hall “Latvija”, etc. and to learn more about the respective object of interest, its opening times, and contact details.
As for the sections “Calendar of Events” and “News”, they are now easier to use and understand.
The Favourites Cart facilitates the use of the website and allows to create a personalized route, which upon viewing the offered content can be added to the Favourites Cart, tapping the heart icon, thus allowing the user to view the selected favourites at a later point. The Favourites Cart allows the user to view the saved content and to create a route, changing the order of locations, which the user wishes to visit, and receiving directions from Google Maps, as well as to print the saved list of favourites.
As for the section “Earn Venti”, it provides a description of the local currency ‘Venti’ and its denominations, as well as information on where to receive, earn, and spend them. Currently, in order to earn the ‘Venti’, user authorization is required. The users can play the game “How Ventspilish Are You?”, completing a simple test on the beliefs and life perception of the locals, and earn 2000 ‘Venti’, which can be withdrawn in person once a month in the Tourist Information Centre at Dārzu iela 6 or in the branch of the ‘Venti’ bank – the hotel of the Olympic Centre “Ventspils” at Lielais prospekts 33.
In order to raise the users’ awareness not only of the Ventspils city but also its region, an additional option is available in the sections “Things To Do”, “Where To Stay”, and “Dining” – the selection of the region and an interactive map, thus informing the user about the number of rural territories, the exact location of the object of interest within them, and tourist facilities available at the specific location.
Given the great interest on the part of the travellers, the TIC has created two completely new sections:
- “About Ventspils” – this section describes the unique nature and virtues of Ventspils, provides more information on its flag, coat of arms, and the particular local dialect, explains the reasons why Ventspils has its own time zone and currency, and tells more about the exhibits of the “Cow Parade” and where to find them.
- “Live Ventspils” – seasonal essentials on tourist attractions during the relevant season and the current events.
