Becker Design & Media Group Ltd — Saskatoon, SKEst. 2012 · hundreds of builds · this is one of them
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Travel & Tourism

ExploreSSEP

Designed, developed, and looked after by Becker Design. This is one of hundreds of websites we've shipped over the years, and one of dozens of hand-built websites you can explore in our portfolio of recent builds.

Live at — exploressep.ca
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ExploreSSEP website by Becker Design
Fig. 01 — ExploreSSEPTravel & Tourism
Overview

Web Design & Development Project Overview

ExploreSSEP is the tourism directory for a corner of southeast Saskatchewan that does not have a tourism industry in the usual sense — no resort town, no marquee attraction, no marketing budget. What it has is fifty-odd small things: a museum in a former coalfield, a bakery, a ball diamond, a Legion branch, a swimming pool, a library. Individually none of them is a reason to drive out. Collectively, with a weekend and a map, they are.

The structure is what makes that argument. Each place is stored as its own entry and given a page, sorted by region, sitting alongside events and multi-stop tours in their own structures so that a single afternoon can be assembled out of the pieces. The partners who run those places update their own entries. Nothing here works if it is one long page maintained by one person in an office — the whole point is that the region maintains its own directory.

Full-page captures

The whole site, top to bottom

Take a glance at full pages, exactly as they shipped.

  • Full-page capture of the ExploreSSEP website
    Fig. 02 — ExploreSSEPFull page

Hover a capture to pan top → bottom · static on touch

Case study

Deep Dive

What actually went into ExploreSSEP’s build, decision by decision — and the service behind each one.

  • 01

    Fifty small things beat one big thing

    A swimming pool, a Legion hall, a coalfields museum, a bakery. No single entry here is worth a two-hour drive, and the site never pretends otherwise. It is built so a visitor can assemble an afternoon out of six of them, which is the only shape of tourism a region like this actually has and the one a brochure cannot express.

    Where this goes deeperTravel & Tourism
  • 02

    Places, events and tours are three different things

    A place is always there. An event happens once. A tour strings several places into a route. Flattening all three into one "attractions" list is the standard mistake, and it makes every one of them harder to find. Three separate structures, related to each other, so that a search for any of the three lands on the right kind of answer.

    Where this goes deeperSEO
  • 03

    The region keeps its own directory

    Tourism directories die when one person is responsible for updating fifty businesses' hours. This one hands each partner their own entry, so the bakery's summer hours are corrected by the bakery. It is slower to set up and it is the only version that is still accurate in three years.

    Where this goes deeperWordPress Management
  • 04

    Sorted by where, not by type

    Somebody planning a Saturday thinks geographically: what is near the place they are already going. Region is a first-class way through the directory for that reason, not a filter buried in a sidebar, and it holds up on a phone in the passenger seat, which is where the question actually gets asked.

    Where this goes deeperResponsive Web Design