Nucleus and P&O Cruises have worked together since 2009, delivering a continuous programme of enhancements and innovations to ensure P&O Cruises remains the UK’s most popular cruise website.
At the same time, users have shifted to mobile devices in unprecedented numbers, P&O Cruises seeing a fourfold increase in the past 12 months, to 35% of all traffic with tablets alone accounting for 26%. P&O Cruises briefed Nucleus to address tablet-friendliness of key pages as a priority. The Home page, product pages and a new Ships section have become scrolling pages with a 3-column format and larger typeface. Sections within the page are easy to jump to, thanks to a smart, in-page navigation tool. The new homepage has resulted in a higher click-through rate in key sections: the Cruise deals page is up 9% WoW and bounce rate decreased by 2% WoW.
The new ‘Ships overview’ pages feature large format image carousels, each of which focuses on one aspect of life on-board: dining, entertainment, shopping, places to socialize, unwind, be active, etc. These make excellent use of mobile-friendly, 360-degree virtual tours of the relevant facilities to bring the experience to life.
The cruise product pages have also been enhanced. 360-degree virtual tours bring the ‘Life on-Board’ section to life and large scale interactive maps allow visitors to explore the itineraries on offer (clicking on ports opens up content describing the destination in question, whilst a ship icon traces the route the cruise will take). The maps, of course, are optimized for iOS and Android operating systems.
Additionally, new landing pages have been created, to present the proposition of P&O Cruises’ different holiday offerings and encourage online research and booking.
Claire Hazle, Head of Digital for P&O Cruises, commented “We are seeing such a sharp growth in mobile access to our website that this absolutely has to be a priority for us now and into 2014. We know that our passengers enjoy researching their P&O Cruises holidays using a wide variety of resources including our brochure, our website and other materials that they receive from us or their travel agent. In the same way that they can gain inspiration from their printed brochures anytime, anywhere, they should be able to go online whenever they like through any device they choose and immerse themselves in the P&O Cruises experience.”
Further enhancements are planned during 2014 to include fully responsive templates to improve smartphone user experience.
About P&O Cruises
P&O Cruises can trace its roots back to 1837 when the Peninsular Steam Navigation Company was awarded the lucrative Admiralty contract to carry mail to the Iberian Peninsula and beyond. Today P&O Cruises combines innovation, professionalism and unrivalled experience on its fleet of seven ships dedicated to the British market. Building on this wealth of knowledge and experience, Ventura was launched in April 2008 and will be followed by Azura in 2010. P&O Cruises offers passengers the most stylish and contemporary holidays afloat with destinations including the Caribbean, South America, Scandinavia, Mediterranean, Atlantic islands and round the world cruises.
www.pocruises.com