Case study
Office du Tourisme Sainte-Marie Desire first, information second
A traveller chooses a destination on an image and organises the trip on practical information — never the other way round. We designed the Sainte-Marie tourist board site to hold both moments, in that order.
The context
Sainte-Marie — Nosy Boraha — is a narrow island off the east coast of Madagascar: beaches, humpback whales in season, and a pirate history that left it a marine cemetery.
A tourist board there has a harder job than it looks, because it addresses two people with nothing in common — who are often the same person, six months apart.
The first is dreaming. They do not yet know where they will go, they are looking at pictures, and nothing they read will decide them: a photograph will. The second has booked. They want opening times, addresses, prices, and every extra image wastes their time.
A site that serves only the first is an unusable postcard. A site that serves only the second is a directory nobody wants to open.
What we produced
A destination site, built to hold both moments of a trip.
Inspiration first
We selected and integrated breathtaking imagery, chosen to create the desire before informing. For a far-off destination, that is the first job: somebody who has never heard of Sainte-Marie is not looking for ferry times, they are looking for a reason to go.
Navigation that lets people wander
The interface lets visitors move through the island’s different facets — the beaches, the activities, local life — without imposing a path. At that stage the visitor does not know what they are looking for: asking them a question at the door makes them leave.
Practical information, filed to be found
Activities, accommodation, restaurants: everything used for planning was organised to be found quickly, once the decision is made. That is the second moment, and it demands the opposite of the first — structure, not atmosphere.
Ways to ask a question
Several contact routes were set up, for the questions no page anticipates. That is exactly what a tourist board is for: answering what is written nowhere.
What it changes
The site does the job a tourist board does: create the desire, then make the stay possible. It does them in that order, and without the second register spoiling the first.
For an island competing for attention with dozens of easier destinations, the point is not to be well documented. It is to be chosen — and nobody chooses a destination on its opening times.
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