Latitude21Resorts.com knows the internet is everyone’s favorite place to do basically everything. From grocery shopping to filling out and submitting tax forms, the internet has changed the world. To stay relevant, every business must transition to an always online, always connected, business model. As most are well aware, the travel industry has been virtually completely dependent on online platforms since the late 1990s. According to American Express Travel, roughly 95% of all travel transactions are made online.
Latitude21Resorts.com understands the importance of catering to the online travel market. In 2015, Latitude21 Resorts launched the world’s first-ever FRBO (For-Rent-By-Owner) timeshare rental advertising model. The idea was to follow in the footsteps of other great FRBO concept websites, such as Airbnb or VRBO. Except, unlike Airbnb and VRBO, to cater to the timeshare market. The first launch of Latitude21resorts.com version 1.0 was a complete success. Version 2.0 of the site was launched shortly thereafter as a follow-up on the first site. However, there really haven’t been major improvements to the site since then. Late last year it became painfully obvious to the Latitude21Resorts IT development team that a major site overhaul was needed.
So the Latitude21Resorts.com team rolled up its sleeves and got to work on a massive overhaul of their site.
Latitude21Resorts.com Version 3.0
“The site needed to be completely updated in order to reflect new trends in the travel industry” remarked Javier de la Piña, Latitude21’s head of IT development.
“The old site just wasn’t up-to-date in regards to the latest look and feel of today’s travel website. We wanted to give the site a new fresh look, keeping the branding simple, and yet easy to follow. Latitude21Resorts only focuses on the niche markets of Hawaii, Mexico, and Canada, so we really wanted our site to have a warm and friendly vibe to reflect the cultures found at Latitude21. We also wanted to expand the blog sections of the website to make sure that we were really describing the “Life is Better Here” concept to site visitors. We feel like the new look and feel of Latitude21Resorts.com plays homage to the cultures that visitors have come to love in a beach destination vacation.”
Security Protocols
Other site improvements included more practical updates, such as improving site security. “At Latitude21Resorts, protecting our customers’ contact information is always a priority, but we really needed to revamp the security features of the website,” remarked de la Piña. “The original version of Latitude21Resorts.com had established a layered architecture to prevent any sort of data breach. However, new industry security protocols required us to go in and update the original code to add additional layers of protection. With our continued focus on marketing efforts, the privacy and security of our advertisers’ and renters’ data is crucial to us. Therefore we continue working in collaboration with top online industry security leaders, acquiring the certifications needed to ensure proper data protection across our platform.”
Optimized Speeds for all Internal Transactions
“When talking about databases, developers tend to forget about usability. This is a lesson we learned in the first iteration of Latitude21Resorts’ timeshare rental advertisement platform. We were working without proper database optimization. Thereby rendering a results page of advertisements became a painstakingly long endeavor. In effect, this forced load times on the timeshare rental platform to be longer, hurting user experience,” remarked de la Piña. “This was just completely unacceptable. The 3.0 version of our database engine offers zero data loss. It has achieved record-breaking indexing speeds for all of our search results. In conclusion, this means renters are now able to search for and find advertisements with lightning speed on Latitude21Resorts.com. We are really happy with the results.”
Transaction Quality and Security
“Ever since Latitude21Resorts’ timeshare rental advertisement platform started operating, we have used a reliable third-party merchant authority to handle all monetary transactions. In other words, all transactions were being run through a secure gateway, directly through a major card processing merchant, however, we really needed to take a good look at our current processor to make sure that we were really offering renters a seamless check-out experience,” said de la Piña. “After really analyzing historical transaction data, we determined to make a switch to the Stripe Processing Gateway.”
“Stripe really offered us the seamless user experience with enhanced security features that we were looking for. Since making the switch, we’ve been very happy with the results. This new solution has multiple benefits for Latitude21Resorts; it allows for all transactions to go through a secure gateway, assuring our customers that their confidential information stays confidential. This, in turn, allows us to focus on other really important aspects, like funneling as much traffic as possible to our timeshare rental advertisement.”
How Do All of These Improvements Add Up?
By ensuring a fast, responsive, and secure timeshare rental advertisement platform, Latitude21Resorts.com provides a safe and secure platform for all users. Not only that, but these optimizations allow the marketing team to promote the platform to a larger audience than ever before. As a result, advertisers on Latitude21Resorts’ timeshare rental platform are receiving more traffic and more rental inquiries today than ever before.
“It was a complete and total website overhaul, but it was really worth the effort,” remarked Javier. “We love the way the new site looks and feels and its performance is the best it’s ever been.”
In a fast paced, constantly changing environment, it is vital to stay current. That is why the Latitude21Resorts’ team of engineers is continuously investing in improving their online platforms. “All of the effort ensures that we are giving the very best exposure for our advertisers. We are looking forward to our best travel high season yet,” said de la Piña enthusiastically.
