Product Design: Travel Agency Tribes

PROJECT OVERVIEW

TEAM: Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Technical Officer, Software Engineer (2), Product Designer, Customer Support

Travel Agency Tribes is a Canadian-based company dedicated to helping independent travel agents and small travel businesses establish a professional digital presence.

The Problem

Small-scale agencies faced challenges with limited technical know-how and tight budgets, while still needing clear communication and customizable tools to represent their unique services.

The Objective

Create a product that fills the gap between simplicity and power: a product that was as easy as Linktree but as beautiful and immersive as a travel brochure.

RESEARCH

Competitor Analysis

I started by studying Carrd, Linktree, and Squarespace in depth, analyzing how they structured onboarding, customization, and templates. I mapped out their strengths and weaknesses for the travel use case:

• Carrd: extremely fast setup, modular, but visually flat. Lacked depth or destination-rich layouts.

• Linktree: brilliant for social creators but too minimal. Travel agencies need to show photos, testimonials, and destinations — not just links.

• Squarespace/Wix: feature-rich, but overcomplicated. Many travel agents don’t have time to learn design systems or page builders.

From this research, I identified the opportunity space:

• Lightweight like Carrd, but visually rich.

• Travel-specific storytelling baked into templates.

• Customization-first so agencies could tweak without coding knowledge.

Travel as an Inspiration

Traveling opened my eyes to how people interact with hotels, agencies, and service industries across different cultures. Through my experiences in Asia, I observed both industry practices and customer frustrations, which shaped my understanding of what travelers really need.

DESIGN PROCESS

I anchored the entire design system around three core principles:

1. Scalability

From the beginning, I treated this project not as 30 isolated templates but as a modular design system.

• Built a reusable component library: headers, hero images, CTA blocks, link rows, testimonial sections, and social buttons could be combined in different ways to generate unique templates.

• Used a consistent spacing and typography scale, ensuring visual balance even across 30 variations.

• Designed with future-proofing in mind: new templates could be added without breaking old ones.

This modular approach meant that the company could offer 30 templates now, but potentially 100+ later, without losing cohesion or needing to rebuild everything.

2. Conciseness

Travelers don’t want to scroll endlessly. Every template was designed for brevity and clarity:

• Hero + CTA at the top: "Book Now," "Get My Travel Tips," "Plan With Me."

• Minimal copy blocks: short descriptions under each section.

• Quick-access buttons: social media, contact, packages.

• Prioritized scannability: typography hierarchy made sure headlines grabbed attention and body text stayed minimal.

The goal was to create sites that felt like digital business cards infused with storytelling.

3. Customizability

While templates provided structure, customizability empowered agents to make them their own:

• Color themes: Agents could adjust button and background colors to match their brand.

• Photos: Swap out destinations with their own images, keeping layouts intact.

• Optional sections: Some agents wanted testimonials, others wanted YouTube embeds — I made sure each could be toggled on/off.

• Social links: From Instagram to WhatsApp, agencies could choose what channels to highlight.

This balance of structure + freedom was key. Templates gave agents professional-looking designs instantly, but customization let them own the brand experience.

TESTING

Agency Testing

We tested the designs with some travel agents who already parner with TAT to answer the questions:

1. Were the designs visually appealing and consistent?

2. Could the agency clearly communicate promotions while maintaining their brand identity?

3. Did the design reduce reliance on external tools or third-party companies?

4. Were there any usability issues?

Issues Found

Stress testing revealed edge cases (walls of text, photo contrasts). This uncovered opportunities to build in constraints and alternative display methods.

Addressing Issues

Giving more options for card links, allowing for better ways to display content more than titles. Putting constraints on titles, and suggesting to use different cards for better readability.

COLLABORATION & DEVELOPMENT

Though I led design and implementation, collaboration was central:

• With the marketer, I refined templates to match customer expectations. For example, their input confirmed the importance of including WhatsApp buttons — a channel most agents rely on.

• With the backend engineer, I ensured the component system integrated smoothly with the database, so agents could input content once and see it flow into any template.

Technically, I developed everything using a reusable component system (front-end, Tailwind CSS, JavaScript) to ensure scalability and maintainability.

Final Product

• Delivered to 1,500+ travel agencies to use

• Solo agents especially reported an enjoyable experience

• Customers used links to easily discover offers on social media

• A scalable system that can expand beyond the initial 30 templates with ease

• Helped agencies increase visibility and trust

My Key Takeaways

• In terms of testing: Add guardrails to handle extreme inputs (dynamic resizing, auto-truncation, responsive text scaling).

While most agencies used them as intended, some uploaded unusually formatted content or oversized blocks of text that disrupted the flow. This experience reinforced the importance of not just designing for the “ideal case,” but also for the unexpected ways real users interact with templates.

• If I had more time: Expand the component system to include more adaptive blocks that can flex based on content density.