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We are making some significant updates to Rezgo.com in the upcoming release.  Many of these changes will affect the way that your tour and activities are presented and displayed. Here are the changes that will be coming and how you can prepare for this upcoming release:

Video Gallery

We have added integrated support for videos hosted on Youtube, Google Video, MetCafe, and iFilm.  If you have video hosted on any of these platforms, you can now store and embed the video details along with your tour and activity information.  This rich media is a great way to entice travelers to book your tour or activity.  You can even link to videos that have been produced by other users.

Image Gallery

We have added an integrated image gallery that can support an unlimited number of images for each of your tours or activities.  Like the video, this rich media is a great way to show your tour and increase the likelihood that a traveler will book your product.  The new image gallery includes a upload utility that allows you to upload multiple images at once which saves you a lot of time and hassle with uploading images one at a time.

Geo-Tagging

You can now geo-tag the location of your tour using the Google Maps API.  This is extremely important because it allows us to better deliver your products through emerging technologies like “Location based services”.  These services are becoming more and more important for travelers who are looking for things to do while at a destination.  By geo-tagging your product, you make it easier for your customers to find you.

Product Description

We have trimmed down the editor used for the description field in order to ensure that the display of your description information is consistent across all browsers and through the Rezgo Distribution Service.  In order to ensure that the descriptions are consistent we are asking all members to review their descriptions, remove images and videos, remove any javascript, and remove any formatting from text.  This is vital because it ensures that your product descriptions present well on vendor websites and across a variety of platforms including the web and mobile browsers.  In addition to making sure your description does not contain images and videos, make sure that your description is interesting and enticing.  Remember, your potential customers will be relying on your description to decide whether to pre-purchase your tour or activity.  For a good example of a product description, check out this example from Westcoast Sightseeing Tours.

Product Classification

Make sure that you specify the product classification for each of your tour or activity products.  This will help in sorting and displaying your products when they are displayed on partner websites.  You will have the option to choose up to 5 classifications that suit your product.

New Front-end

The front-end has been completely re-designed from the ground up to ensure consistensy across all standard browsers and uses the latest in dynamic web technologies.  The calendar has been moved up for easy reference, the image and video galleries have been added, and the map is now prominent in the side bar.  In order to ensure that the display is consistent across all browsers and that the dynamic features work properly, we have changed the front-end to fixed width.  Although we understand that this may affect some private label templates, we feel the added functionality, consistensy, professionalism, and design will increase the overall look of your front-end and increase the conversion of lookers to bookers on your website.

This is an example of the old front-end.  Not much to write home about.

This is an example of the new front-end with full product display, sorting via tags/categories, and much nicer product search form.

Why did we make these changes?

Many of you are probably wondering why we made these changes.  The answer is actually quite simple, in order to improve the experience of your customers and to increase your chances of converting lookers into bookers.  We received numerous requests to move the calendar higher in the interface and to add more rich media functionality.  We made the decision to make those changes and update the front-end because we felt that the current interface was not optimized for those kinds of features.

Support During Transition

We fully understand that many of our members will need time to update their product information in order to take advantage of these new features and to adapt their private label templates to the new front-end.  The old front-end will be available until November 1 at which time, all members will be moved to the new front-end.  Remember that the sooner you update your descriptions and rich media, the sooner you can take advantage of the new front-end features.

As we get closer to the new release we will keep you notified of the actual release date so that you can plan your transition accordingly and remember, if you have any questions or need support, you can always check out our support site at http://support.rezgo.com and use the forms there to submit a request or question.

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