Personalise Your Destination Website
The importance of User Filtering and Personalisation on Destination Websites
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Written by: Will Wright, Managing Partner at DestinationCore
Read time: less than a minute
What is Personalisation?
At its core, personalisation is about creating a tailored experience for users based on their unique preferences and behaviours. For destination marketing websites, this means offering content that allows visitors to explore what they truly care about—be it outdoor adventures, cultural events, or culinary delights. Rather than presenting a one-size-fits-all solution, personalisation encourages users to take control of their journey.
Empowering Users to Self-Select Content
The key to effective personalisation lies in enabling users to choose their own path. Websites that incorporate intuitive filters, interactive maps, and engaging content categories help visitors uncover relevant information quickly and efficiently.
Examples of Self-Selection in Action
VISIT PEAK DISTRICT & DERBYSHIRE - https://visitpeakdistrict.com/
On the homepage there is a ‘What interests you?’ Section. This allows the user to pick a theme they are most interested in - from family Friendly to Hidden Gems and The Gentle Outdoors. Users can easily navigate between the themed content to find what’s most important to them.
NEW ADVENTURES - https://newadventures.org.uk/experiences
The New Adventure website is all about bookable experiences. In the experiences section of the site users can filter by category, location and budget to refine the results to suit their individual needs.
VISIT WINCHESTER - https://www.visitwinchester.co.uk/events
The events section on this site is a great example of how users can filter down content to meet their particular interest type. Events can be filtered by All, Today, Next 7 Days and Next 30 Days, as well as the option to filter by category or select a start and end date. All with the aim of getting users to the What’s On content which is of most interest to them.
VISIT WORCESTERSHIRE - https://visitworcestershire.org/trip-planner
The Worcestershire Trip Planner shows decision tree filtering in action. Users are asked a series of questions and results are live filtered as questions are answered. Users can even favourite content and add it to a unique itinerary and share it with others to add to the personalised feel.
What Clients Think
We asked some of our clients for their thoughts on why personalisation is important. Here’s what they said.
Rachel Gander, Tourism and Development Manager at Winchester City Council believes that people are increasingly time poor, and this makes personalisation an essential ingredient on the Visit Winchester site.
“People have so little time these days, and there is so much choice out there. We wanted to create a site that took the stress out of booking a holiday or planning a day trip. When you don’t know an area you want someone to tell you what to do, based on what they know you’ll like. We wanted the Visit Winchester website to be their ‘digital buddy’, allowing them to quickly access content and trip ideas that are relevant to them.”
With this in mind easy to use filtering becomes even more important.
“We want people to feel like Winchester is the right place for them to visit because it offers the experiences that are relevant to their interests. By giving them the option to self-select they are easily presented with this tailored information, rather than being put off by something that isn’t what they were looking for.”
“A heritage city like Winchester, with a vibrant festivals and events scene, has a variety of things to do for a broad range of audiences. It’s important to us that each audience sees the Winchester that they want to explore. A destination website is quite often the first place a visitor will look, so it’s important to impress them and connect with them from the first click.”
The Peak District is a destination with plenty of variety catering for a diverse set of audiences. Rachel Briody, Marketing Campaigns Manager at Visit Peak District & Derbyshire feels it is important to target users by mindset.
“As a destination the Peak District & Derbyshire has so much going on – which is great as there really is something for everyone – but that can lead to information overload on your web pages. We wanted a website that could tailor content for each potential visitor.”
This makes it important to offer users a way to refine content based on what is most important to them.
“The introduction of thematic filters on the website provides a quick way for visitors to filter content but also means we are able to produce content rich pages that google loves, pulling all the relevant blogs, itineraries, attractions and businesses onto one simple landing page. Our dog friendly page is a great example of this, it shows a wide range of things to do and see across the destination for you and your furry friend.”
Three Top Tips for Implementing User-Selected Personalisation
- Create Intuitive Navigation: Design your website to allow users to easily filter content based on their interests, such as activities, events, or accommodations, as well as allowing them to filter by ‘themes’ or broad categories.
- Implement Interactive Tools: Use preference selectors, or decision tree style filtering which help users discover tailored recommendations based on their choices.
- Encourage Exploration: Create themed sections or guides that cater to specific interests, making it easier for users to dive into the content they want to explore.
By focusing on user-driven personalisation, destination marketing websites can create more meaningful connections with visitors, leading to greater engagement, more loyalty and ultimately a better conversion from online visitor to actual visitor. If you’d like to know more about how to create more personalised experiences on your destination website then get in touch.
