The design and development of the web application for yacht rental and boat booking service.

Sailica's mission is to address any requests from sailors on a single online platform: search, booking, and rental of charter yachts, catamarans, motorboats in any popular destination, from the Seychelles to Norway. This project was developed as a catalog of tours from trusted organizers of yacht tours, as well as a magazine for sailors and yacht enthusiasts, making Silica one of the most handy and popular online services to look for and book/rent boats and yachts worldwide.

Sailica is a great example of the our typical approach on IT solutions we provide for complex business: deep analytics and market research, product testing, MVP for startups, product  A/B testing, digital optimization, structured approach to Big Data for booking systems and lifetime (sprint-by-sprint) improvements of UX/UI interface of a product

Client

Sailica is an international online service that specializes in the booking and chartering of yachts, catamarans, sailboats, and motorboats. This online platform provides the opportunity to find and book any type of boat or yacht that suits your needs, no matter where you are in the world. The service acts as an online agent or marketplace between the client and verified rental providers such as fleet operators/charter companies/boat or yacht owners, ensuring the quality and safety of each journey.

Challenge

Our team was tasked to develop a large booking system that would combine a database of the entire fleet of yachts, motorboats, sailboats, and catamarans available worldwide. The goal was to create a system that would combine everything in such a way that the entire available and up-to-date fleet would be displayed on the website from all the biggest data providers that automatically integrate through an API. Essentially, the aim was to create an online platform that would replace an offline agent or an agency.

Solution

The main logic behind the development of a custom booking system was comprehensive work with data. We have developed a system that constantly updates actual databases where fleet operators and vessel owners are managing info on the availability of their yachts and boats. Then the system identifies and cleans any repeated data and provides the end user with clean and unique yacht and boat booking propositions.

Sailica users have the option to hire a crew (skipper/hostess/chef) or use the bareboat charter service to personally navigate the boat. The yacht booking database contains over 15254 available yachts and boats for more than 670k booking offers on Sailica, starting from 500 euros for a sailing vacation or a true round-the-world journey.

The Sailica platform is a simple and user-friendly platform developed with our tech solution for boats and yacht charter agencies. You can easily find and compare different yachts, catamarans, and motorboats using search and filters. We have connected one of the most popular API Booking Managers for yacht and boat booking agencies to Sailica. This tech solution allows your booking website to provide your users with advanced filters for the detailed search.

In Solar Digital we are highly interested in our client’s success. That is why we always strive to integrate the best tech solutions in the niche for our clients. Our market research on clients' industries + our experience + our approach make Sailica stand out from its competitors and secure Solars' long-term partnerships with most of our clients.

That is why we applied an advanced search widget for Sailica, one of the ground-breaking solutions for fleet operators and yacht booking agencies. The search widget we applied allows Sailica’s users to make as detailed a search as it is possible on the market:

• Users can decide how many cabins they want, or how many crew members they need
• It is even possible to check prices for yachts prices for several seasons in advance, which is not a common thing in the market
• Detailed information on each boat or yacht, including additional services provided on the vessel
• Seasonal discounts and a special discount system for Sailica regular customers
• User-friendly, constantly updating CRM for Sailica managers to provide better customer service and increase their satisfaction. Allowing 24/7 manager support for any customer worldwide.

Yet Sailica is a project where the Solar Digital team has renewed and advanced the UI/UX for the client to create the perfect Boat rental website. Solar Digital has extensive experience in booking and maritime industries, which is why we can provide those services faster and more efficiently than any other IT company on the market.

For Sailica we have conducted research for the Discovery Phase of the project. Our main goal was to understand Sailica’s target audience’s needs and preferences for web yacht booking. That is why our team has surveyed sailors, yacht and boat owners, and Sailica customers. This helped us better understand what is trending on the market and have a clear understanding of the user experience of Sailica.

Discovery Phase and testing helped us to improve the previous version of Silica. The first design Discovery Phase and testing helped us to improve the previous version of Silica. The first design version was not as clean and user-friendly as it was intended, which is why our team started to look for some more options in order to increase usability. We used the Hotjar plugin to analyze user behavior, which helped develop an enhanced version 2.0. Based on both Hotjat results, previous research, and constant communication with the client, we have created a new design for Sailica. Changes in design led to improved SEO performance with no extra changes to content, resulting in increased traffic and lower Bouncing rates.

The development of the Sailica project was carried out by two front-end and back-end specialists under project managers supervision. The team also included a quality control engineer. Our developer specialist has used Laravel and Vue. js technologies, yacht booking API system integration, and HubSpot CRM.

Silica became a huge success in the yacht and boat booking market internationally, which is why this yacht booking website was optimized for 3 languages (including English and German) and has several European and Nordic languages planned.

Sailica App is another evidence of our client’s business success. We at Solar Digital have been trusted to develop a yacht charter & boat rental mobile app for our client. You can check an App Store and get a full first-hand experience on the yacht charter & boat rental mobile app we have developed. Now our team is working on the Google Play version as well.

Result

Thanks to the online platform Sailica, you will be able to fulfill your dreams of exciting sea travels and enjoy unforgettable experiences. With such a system, you can choose any yacht, motorboat, sailboat, or catamaran for booking by simply entering its name on the website or selecting the region of your desired journey. Everything is convenient and accessible on one website.

This approach and the desire for a user-friendly interface also led them to create a unique selling proposition (USP). Sailica is the only platform where you can directly enter the name of a yacht boat, or charter company, and search specifically for it. For example, if a person has traveled with a certain charter company before and wants to repeat that experience, he or she can simply enter the specific name and find their desired charter or boat. Such customization is not available elsewhere, which greatly enhances the convenience of using the platform.

A fun fact about this project is that we had Sailica’s competitors contacting us with a compliment about the new custom website design we have developed, as it makes Sailica one of the most user-friendly and handy yacht booking websites in the market. Our company, Solar Digital, takes pride in this case because there are no similar alternatives in the market. Sailica is a shining example of expertise in technical solutions for businesses in the rental of maritime assets and how changes in interface and user design can boost a business with no extra investments.