Plainsailing

Introduction

Plain Sailing Limited is a UK-based, award-winning yacht and catamaran charter for Greece, Croatia, and the Mediterranean. They have been in operation for almost ten years and were awarded “Best Yacht Charter Agency in Europe” at the Luxlife Travel and Tourism Awards, 2020. Plain Sailing’s Managing Director, Adrian Tognarelli, contacted us in 2016 to acquire our services to develop a centralized, integrated e-commerce platform to track commercial and physical data for yachts.

Task

We were tasked with integrating multiple web-based sources into one single consolidated, cloud-based data resource for the platform’s users. We were also tasked with providing long-term maintenance and development of this platform. Specific tasks are involved in accomplishing so, which are listed below:

• Integrating third party API (Application Programming Interface) data, in various formats, into one streamlined data source.
• Creating real-time search capabilities for price and availability, as multiple applications were being uploaded and visitor updates to data were completed on a per-second basis.
• Creating the facilities for online payment
• Creating a fast-loading platform for customers to book yachts and catamarans across many different locations on their computers, laptops, and mobile devices.

Challenges

Specific activities we took to complete the tasks and challenges mentioned above were:

• Held extensive communication with all parties involved and evolved standards for machine-to-machine communication to integrate third party API data.
• Utilizing standard industry encryption tools, such as SSL and TLS, ensures any sensitive data is secure in communication.
• Utilizing Accelerated Mobile Pages technology from Google to improve the performance of the e-commerce platform by creating lightweight pages which load quickly for smartphone and tablet users.
• Utilizing WorldPay for online payment facilities.
• I communicated, and still communicate with, the project lead about any roadblocks within the project as it ensues to overcome any setbacks.

Result

We created an e-commerce platform which was so effective that Plain Sailing has since won several awards, including ‘Sailing Company of the year England’ at the Travel and Hospitality Awards 2020. This achievement was partly due to their simple booking process, facilitated by our online platform. This had created valuable trust with the company when ongoing maintenance on the website, demonstrated through our ongoing service to them for over five years since the initial app deployment.