When a travel agency runs a network of high-street branches across Austria, the website has to pull off a quiet balancing act: it should feel as familiar as the storefront on the corner, and at the same time bridge the gap to a concrete booking — without quietly defaulting back to the phone hotline. That was the job in 2012 for the consumer-facing website of the Alda Travel branches. Worth noting: Alda Travel is not to be confused with the group's parallel B2B booking platform — this project was about the retail branch business, made visible for the travelers themselves.
- TYPO3 as the CMS, so branch managers could maintain offers, location data and seasonal campaigns themselves
- Hook into the flight ticket system — availability and fares served from the operator's backend
- Branch finder with addresses, opening hours and named contacts for every location
- Curated package and trip offers rather than automated mass listings
- Design system keeping the Alda Travel brand consistent across print storefronts and web
- Snappy delivery even on image-heavy destination pages
The platform delivered with rockit turned the Austrian branch network into a browsable digital counterpart: travelers could explore, check flights and finish the booking at the nearest Alda Travel branch. The Alda brand has since been consolidated — the engagement is closed, but the lessons learned on travel-industry projects of this scale still travel with us.