IT’S TEE TIME!

WE ‘VE DEVELOPED THE CRETE GOLF CLUB’S NEW CORPORATE WEBSITE (and it looks amazing!)

Following the extensive upgrade which got under way since August 2014, the fully renovated  Crete Golf Club has reopened and is more than ready to become the next hot European golfing destination. The new establishment needed to be represented by a website that, apart from the company and services, would showcase the scenery of the Crete Golf Club and promote the Mediterranean beauty, while also acting as a point of sale for additional products and services. ATCOM and TOPOSOPHY partnered with the Crete Golf Club team and assisted on plotting the appropriate design, content, marketing and implementing strategy for this purpose.

The website needed a complete update, including a revised site structure, revamped content strategy and refreshed design that would introduce Crete Golf Club’s brand identity. TOPOSOPHY adopted the “content-first” philosophy to emphasize the importance of putting the website content before everything else – design or development. A solid content strategy guided our plans for the Who (audience), What (topics) and Where (site architecture) of content creation. This is how we defined our target audience’s needs and achieved our marketing goals. Allowing users to browse and explore the site easily via topics and themes, we would manage to keep them engaged on the website for a longer period of time.

However, most of us process information based on what we see, not what we read. This is why content and design should be working hand-in-hand. The purpose of the new website’s design was to present the quality content in a meaningful way, while showcasing a catchy visual environment.

UXlab, ATCOM’s UX experts, performed an in-depth analysis and created the website’s wireframes to assure intuitive navigation. After that, they worked in close collaboration with the Creative Department during the entire production. The Creative Department of ATCOM, based on ATCOM’s previous experience, adopted UXlab’s guidelines and insights and incorporated them in its creative vision, giving birth to a responsive, user-friendly and easily navigable website across browsers and devices.

The new website was powered by Netvolution™ WCM, ATCOM’s award-winning e-Commerce platform.

Tens of thousands visit Crete each year, however not many people know that the real beauty of the biggest island of Greece is hidden in the surrounding areas. It was important for the client to bring awareness to the 4 main Cretan cities - Heraklion, Chania, Rethymno & Agios Nikolaos and prompt visitors to explore them and their charming villages.

TOPOSOPHY launched a new About Crete section which showcases Highlights, Experiences and tips on Gastronomy and Culture – it expands on each area’s vibe and local insights and displays area-specific content.

We also created a new section with all the necessary visitor information, including a weather info widget, a map with all available flight from/to Crete and a booking engine.

Upon completion of the website build, TOPOSOPHY also led the translation portion of the project. In partnership with on-the-ground experts in each international market, we identified and translated culturally relevant content into 4 different languages.

Our goal was to take advantage of the fact that Golf Tourism is a growth market for holiday travel and it is becoming a very common practice for agencies to direct their clients to the best locations to tee off.

The big story is that the golf industry is beginning to look at the possibilities of reinventing both itself and its customers. A fair argument is that the comeback of golf to the Olympic program for Rio in 2016 is expected to refresh the sport’s appeal to key markets. Given that golf is suggested to be the second preferred sport of high net worth individuals in China, the Olympics will probably shape the perceptions of potential customers from emerging markets as well. For The Economist, equally important is the challenge of attracting younger generations to play the game as it is.

Hence, the new Crete Golf Club Academy offers lessons and tournaments to both beginners and professionals, provided by certified PGA golf instructors. 

On June 2015, the new cretegolfclub.com responsive website launched on time and on budget. The new and improved website not only unveils Crete’s Golf Club new brand look and feel, but it also implements some of the most innovative strategies to date.

Combining three key-elements, scenery, climate and facilities, the first 18-hole Golf Course of international standards in the island of Crete, is expected to prove irresistible to golfers thanks to its ultra-modern facilities that are accompanied by the unrivalled beauty of the Mediterranean landscape.

The extensive renovation of “The Crete Golf Club” represents the first significant step towards the establishment of the entire island of Crete as an international golfing destination; a fact that translates into an expansion of the tourism season and a further contribution to the island’s economic growth.