With smartphone apps becoming a tourism norm, more small and medium-sized attractions are seeking an easy way to meet traveler expectations. Still, WishTrip found it challenging to convince the traditionally paper-based tourism industry to use a SaaS solution.
WishTrip needed to provide an app platform that worked well for all types of visitor attractions and destinations, including urban zoos, remote national parks and even tourism boards covering a large region. The company also wanted to deliver an affordable, fast, and easy-to-use solution to which features can be easily added.
“For smaller tourism locations, creating a visitor mobile app can be expensive and overwhelming,” says Slushtz. “We want to make these apps accessible to all destinations, no matter their size or budget. We aim to give them control while ensuring the outcome is quick, cost-effective, and doesn't require technical expertise to manage.”
For the search capabilities that are a key component to the success of its products, WishTrip at first used a search engine and database built in-house. However, the legacy search engine became more complex as it grew, making it challenging to add new features. Most importantly, search latency was a significant problem.