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Kontiki, a Leading Swiss Travel Specialist, Elevates the Digital Travel Experience with TYPO3

internezzo AG creates a user-friendly, sustainable travel journey built for discovery and performance

Headquarter
Switzerland
Employees
101-500
Project Focus
Relaunch, Editor centric
TYPO3 since
2018

Kontiki Reisen, Switzerland’s top travel specialist for Northern Europe, has delivered unforgettable journeys to the Baltic States, Scandinavia, Iceland, and Scotland for over 40 years. In 2018, to meet evolving customer expectations, Kontiki partnered with internezzo AG to overhaul their travel portal focusing on sustainability, user experience, and scalable digital infrastructure.

In 2018, internezzo AG partnered with Kontiki to provide an unforgettable user experience with their website relaunch. The project aimed to create an intuitive interface for both the Product Information Management (PIM) and booking system while ensuring long-term reliability and stability. The TYPO3 CMS was the chosen solution to meet these goals, ensuring an efficient workflow for both the travel consultants and product managers. internezzo was the ideal partner for this project, thanks to their strong focus and proven expertise in creating user-friendly interfaces. Kontiki was impressed by internezzo and their agile, user-first project approach. Built on a foundation of mutual trust, Kontiki and internezzo collaborated to deliver a high-quality relaunch on time and within budget.

How TYPO3 Powers Sustainability and Efficiency at Scale

As a large-scale operation serving both internal teams and external users, Kontiki needed a solution that could reliably support the booking experience for travelers and travel consultants alike. By implementing the TYPO3 CMS, they established a stable and scalable foundation for intuitive digital travel planning and bookings, while also preparing for future growth in travel demand and lead generation.

In the relaunch, workflow efficiencies and user-friendly design were a top priority. Creating a harmonious interface that connected content management and booking processes was critical to the success of this project. Additionally, offline workflows were to be optimized for efficiency with the help of TYPO3’s user-centric backend capabilities. 

Kontiki is one of the world’s leading travel providers in the field of sustainability, with a strong commitment to responsible tourism and corporate social responsibility. Their relaunch emphasized reducing printed materials such as catalogs and product data sheets by making them digitally accessible through the website, supporting their mission of sustainable development across all destinations.

Key Outcomes

Intuitive Travel Planning

Developed an intelligent travel planner with filtering, sorting, and interactive features to guide users to personalized trip recommendations.

Real-Time Support

Powered by tawk.to, this feature provides real-time support and instant answers to FAQs, enhancing user assistance while reducing service overhead.

Integrated Systems and Streamlined Workflows

Integrated Kontiki’s booking and PIM systems with TYPO3 for fast search and streamlined workflows.

“Wow” Moments Discovery Tool

Introduced a filterable highlights feature that allows users to explore personal, standout travel experiences.

Prioritizing User-Friendly Travel Experiences

At the heart of the website live trips and associated data. Large volumes of information are continuously synchronized with the Product Information Management (PIM) system using Extbase—an area where TYPO3 excels. To efficiently process these high data loads and ongoing updates, synchronization is handled asynchronously via a queue system supported by multiple workers. Nearly every page generates dynamic content, with the travel planner particularly benefiting from the Solr extension, which enables fast and comprehensive in-page search functionality.

To ensure a user-centric relaunch, Kontiki conducted rounds of interviews with their customers in order to create personas. These personas informed the corresponding user journeys that were implemented in the navigation and content concept. The central focus remained on the customers while reworking existing elements of the website, in addition to further development of future features. The UX design was the driving force behind decisions made during this project. While the outward user-experience was the central focus of this project, the internezzo team simultaneously worked to simplify and automate internal processes for in-house users. This included the individual development of internal processes, such as the provision of travel information. 

To simplify and automate internal processes while enhancing the user experience, several custom features and integrations were developed for the website.

“I experience the cooperation with internezzo on a very open, collegial and professional level. I feel understood and individual requirements are taken seriously and constructive solutions are sought. Even after the relaunch, we celebrated many other milestones together, such as the new excursion shop. The strength of the agile approach became clear again: an MVP is delivered by the agreed deadline and then we refine and expand the feature as required. Without the agile method, we would probably still not be live, as needs and requirements can change quickly in our business. I really appreciate the fact that we have been able to maintain a constant and respectful partnership as equals since summer 2018.

- Madeleine Mathis, Project Manager Marketing, Kontiki Reisen

 

A Collaboration That Goes Beyond the Go-Live

The relaunch was divided into three phases including a concept, design and development phase. Following these phases, an extensive round of testing was conducted prior to the go-live date. The relationship between Kontiki and internezzo continued after their successful go-live as Kontiki’s website is constantly growing and adapting to new requirements. internezzo left a lasting impression with their customer-centric and agile approach. To this day, new features are developed and worked on in regular, ongoing sprints. internezzo operates and maintains secure web solutions and applications in collaboration with Kontiki’s internal IT department. Beyond a successful working relationship, the project teams occasionally meet for a barbecue offline. 

After the successful go-live in the fall of 2019, internezzo switched to further development in the form of annual sprints based on need and budget, continuing their successful alliance.

Find out more

Relaunching a complex website is only half the battle. Finding the right partner with whom you can collaborate, trust and bring a vision to life together with is the key to a successful relaunch. The TYPO3 CMS is equipped to handle complex workflows and provide a stable framework for a travel portal, shop interface or a company website alike. 

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Copyright internezzo AG
Copyright internezzo AG
Copyright internezzo AG
Copyright internezzo AG