Which Review Platform Should Safari and Tour Operators Focus On?
- Marketing
- |
- 31/01/2023
Having a website is essential in today’s digital age for safari businesses as it offers numerous benefits. Let’s check out some of the reasons why you should invest your time and money in a website!
Online Presence – It provides a platform for safari operators to establish their online presence, making it easier for the potential safari customers to find and connect with them.
Accessibility – Unlike traditional stores, a website is available 24×7, allowing customers to access your products and services at any time.
Establish Trust – A professional-looking safari website can help establish credibility and trust with potential customers, increasing the chances of conversion.
Cost-effective – Compared to traditional methods, a website can be cost-effective to promote your products and services while providing a platform for your customer’s feedback and inquiries.
Well, the cost of a safari website may vary widely depending on various factors that you might want to include in your website. For instance, do you want to keep it simple or a little complex, the level of information you want to provide, the design you choose to go for, and the expertise that goes behind preparing a great safari & tour website.
Now, let’s go deep into understanding some of the factors that highly affect the cost of building a safari website:
- Customization level: Off-the-shelf template vs. custom design safari website
An off-the-shelf template is a pre-designed webpage that can be customized with content and images to create your website. Using a website template can save time and money, as the design work has already been done and the template can be easily customizable to your safari business needs. However, templates may not be unique and may not perfectly fit the specific requirements of your website.
On the other hand, a custom design involves creating a unique design from scratch to meet the specific needs of your safari & tour website. This can be more expensive and time-consuming than a website template but allows complete control over your website’s look and functionalities. It can also play a better role in positioning your safari brand value.
Here is a general comparison between an off-the-shelf template and a Custom design website:
| Categories | Off-the-shelf template | Custom design |
| Cost | Free to a few hundred dollars for a premium template. | Can range from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands of dollars depending on the complexity of the website. |
| Additional costs | Hosting, domain registration, and maintenance fees. | Hosting, domain registration, and maintenance fees. |
| Advantages | Cost-effective and time efficient. | Unique, tailored to specific needs, full control over the functionalities. |
| Disadvantages | Less unique, limited customization options, may not perfectly fit your safari business objectives. | Time-consuming, expensive, and requires technical expertise. |
- Features and functionalities: E.g., booking system, photo gallery, reviews section
Being a safari website, you must include safari-related content to showcase wildlife, destinations, and itineraries so it attracts the potential audience.
Some of the functionalities that your website should include are:
Booking System – Your website should allow users to book safari and tours directly through the site. Include information regarding tour packages and pricing.
Picture Gallery – Include high-quality pictures of the wildlife with your touring destinations which tourists can expect during their visit.
Reviews and Testimonials – Provide reviews from previous customers to give potential customers a chance to make informed decision about the trip.
- Content creation: E.g., copywriting, photography, video production
Even if you have a great-looking website, if you have not provided content that adds value to what your customer is looking for, then you might want to re-think the whole website.
These are some of the types of content you should invest in for your safari website:
Copywriting – This is where you write engaging digital content for your home page, landing page, tour package, itineraries page, blogs, and everything that comes in between.
Photographic Content – Aim to give potential visitors a realistic and immersive experience with high-quality pictures that showcase the inspiring aspects of a safari.
Video Content – Include videos of experiences or activities people can expect on getting a tour package from your safari website. Testimonials from your previous customers can as well add up to great value.
- Search engine optimization (SEO) and online marketing: E.g., keyword research, link building, social media integration
No matter how much attractive you have made your safari website look, if you have not optimized it according to the search engine and current trends, then you would not be able to be found by your target audience.
Below factors need to be focused on the most:
Keyword Research – By doing keyword research, you would be able to know for which keyword your website would be searched or what is the intent behind the search. With this you can find out what is most relevant search for your safari business and rightly place those in your website content.
Link Building – One of the essential ranking factors for search engines. When you provide value-added content in your safari website, already-established websites are most likely to give you a reference link from their website. The higher the quality of the link a webpage has, the better the chances of getting ranked.
Social Media Integration – Having a social media presence can increase awareness for your business and increase the reach and engagement of your website by your safari audience.
- Maintenance and updates: E.g., hosting, security, software upgrades
Your safari website also needs huge back-end support with all the information it holds for its audience. You need to maintain and update them regularly to make sure your website remains working.
Let’s see some of these critical aspects:
Hosting – Your website is actually built by bringing together many files which are hosted on a physical web server. The process of acquiring a space on that server is called hosting which you need to bear the cost for.
Security – Your website needs to be an HTTPS site, where S stands for “secure”. This ensures your site user’s data is secure, instills trust among the users, and verifies the ownership of the website.
Software Upgrades – To keep your website running smoothly and lower the risk of vulnerabilities, you need to keep it updated. This increases usability prevents security issues and keeps your safari website up to the trends.
Cost breakdown of an African safari website
Applying all the current technologies to build a website we provide 3 types of web development plans specifically for all the safari operators.
Let’s check them out!
| Features | Start-Up Plan | High-End Plan | Premium Plan |
| Package Cost | $2000 – $2500 | $3000 – $3500 | $5000 – $7000 |
| Style of Design | Moderate | High End | World Class |
| Responsive Design | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Content Design | Only Destination Page | All content to be provided by us (except the itinerary page) | SEO-friendly content to be provided by us (except the itinerary page) |
| Platform | HTML | HTML/ WordPress | According to the client’s requirement |
| Compatibility across browsers and devices | Mobile, Desktop, Browser – Chrome | Mobile, Desktop, Tablet, Browser – Chrome | Mobile, Desktop, Tablet, Browser – Chrome, Safari, Firefox, IE |
| Images we use | From Google | From Google and enhance the quality and we will use your banding Images Team Images and Client’s images with you or with your fleets or waring your t-shirts or hats, having dinners and office images, etc. | From Google and enhance the quality of your company branding Team Images and Client’s images with you or with your fleets or waring your t-shirts or hats, having dinners and office images, etc. Also, you can share the Video clips. |
| Blog page Designing and development | Only Blog Designing | Blog Designing and set up and integrate (Only on the home page) | Blog Designing and set up in home page and dedicated landing page (All Safari Pages) |
| Join Group Tour | No | Group join set up and integrate (Only on the home page) | Group join set up and integrate on the dedicated landing page (Safari Landing Page) |
| Type of Itinerary Price comparison | No | No | We will categories each package (Where a customer can compare the packages like if he chooses a luxury, midrange, and budget package then what he will get services on that package) |
| Custom Website Coding & Designing | Yes (In HTML) | Yes | Yes (Based on client requirement) |
| Dedicated UX project manager | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 24×7 Support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
We have listed out the examples of websites that are made using the above different plans!
What do we Suggest?
The amount you should invest in building a safari website depends on various factors such as the scale your website, the features you want to include, the customizations needed, complexity of the design and the expertise included.
But first, you need to define the goal of your website and the audience you want to target, then go forward with achieving them. It’s important to keep in mind that a well-designed and functional website can be a significant asset to your safari and tour business, and investing in it can pay off in the long run.
So don’t hesitate to plan and invest wisely in your African safari website.
