African Adventure
The web development team have taken a walk on the wild side with their latest project.
Samarind were asked to build a website for Ultimate Safaris and Islands, a provider of luxury, tailor-made holidays in Africa and the islands off the African coastline. The company was set up by Gara Gharagozlou and Alexia Walker, who fell in love with the continent after enjoying a holiday in South Africa. Subsequently they ran a safari camp in Botswana and this gave the couple the idea of providing bespoke holidays at the very best camps and destinations. They wanted to share their love and knowledge of the real Africa.
‘We wanted a very visual site,’ said Gara. ‘The images are what make people want to go to Africa; they capture the imagination by showing its beauty and wonder. We were very fortunate in that we had access to pictures by some of the best photographers in Africa.’
The result, www.ultimatesafarisandislands.com, is a stunning website. It features more than 1,200 images and all have been optimised for the web.
‘It was big challenge for the team, placing and optimising all those pictures, but one of the things that made this project such a joy to work on,’ said Samarind’s Software Sales Executive, Phil Turner. ‘It really is a beautiful website and we’re very proud of it.’
Senior Web Developer Matt Worrall and his team worked very closely with Gara and Alexia to make sure the site fully answered their needs and matched their vision.
‘Gara and Alexia show great attention to detail in everything they do,’ said Phil. ‘I know they worked very hard researching the safari camps to make sure only the very best feature on Ultimate Safaris. This focus extended to the building of the website and was a big help. It’s great when clients have clear ideas of what they want.’
Gara confirmed: ‘It was a backwards-and-forwards process and we had lots of input. Samarind were very good at communicating with us. It was good fun working with those guys – they were able to interpret what we were trying to do.
‘Alexia and I had never been involved in web development before and Samarind allowed us to enjoy the process. We’re hugely delighted with the end result.’
Like all Samarind-built websites, www.ultimatesafarisandislands.com doesn’t just look pretty, it’s also a very effective marketing tool. The site has been effectively search engine optimised and Ultimate Safaris are able to collate email addresses for mail-shots. A news section has been set up which Gara and Alexia can content manage themselves.
‘We needed to be able to update that area ourselves,’ said Gara, ‘but otherwise we’ll only need to alter the content after we’ve been to Africa on site inspection trips or something radical has changed at our properties, such as upgrades or refurbishments.
‘Samarind have more than matched our expectations. We’re very pleased we chose them, rather than the London-based agencies we also approached. A big factor in their favour was their enthusiasm: they were really keen to do it. That enthusiasm was maintained throughout the project.’