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, and 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 our typical approach to IT solutions we provide for complex businesses: 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 specializing in booking and chartering yachts, catamarans, sailboats, and motorboats. This online platform allows you to find and book any boat or yacht that suits your needs, no matter where you are. 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 combining everything so 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 to replace an offline agent or an agency.
Solution
The main logic behind developing a custom booking system was comprehensive work with data. We have created a system that constantly updates actual databases where fleet operators and vessel owners manage 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 can hire a crew (skipper/hostess/chef) or use the bareboat charter service to navigate the boat personally. 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. Using search and filters, you can easily find and compare different yachts, catamarans, and motorboats. 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 detailed searches.
At Solar Digital, we are highly interested in our clients' success. That is why we always strive to integrate the best tech solutions in our clients' niches. Our market research on clients' industries, our experience, and 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 possible to check yacht prices several seasons in advance, which is uncommon 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 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, so we can provide those services faster and more efficiently than any other IT company.
For Sailica, we 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 surveyed sailors, yacht and boat owners, and Sailica customers. This helped us better understand what is trending on the market and clearly understand Sailica’s user experience.
The discovery phase and testing helped us improve the previous version of Silica. The first design discovery phase and testing helped us improve the previous version of Silica. The first design version was not as clean and user‑friendly as intended, so our team started looking for more options to increase usability. We used the Hotjar plugin to analyze user behavior, which helped develop an enhanced version 2.0. Based on Hotjat’s results, previous research, and constant communication with the client, we created a new Sailica design. Changes in design led to improved SEO performance with no extra changes to content, resulting in increased traffic and lower Bouncing rates.
Two front-end and back-end specialists carried out the development of the Sailica project under the supervision of the project manager. 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 internationally in the yacht and boat booking market, which is why this website was optimized for three 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 can fulfill your dreams of exciting sea travels and enjoy unforgettable experiences. With such a system, you can book any yacht, motorboat, sailboat, or catamaran 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 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 charter company before and wants to repeat that experience, they 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 renting maritime assets and how changes in interface and user design can boost a business with no extra investments.
