A brand new website for a sustainable peruvian hotel

Year: 2024
Tasks: Concept, Design, UX, UI, Animation, Video editing, Iconset, Project Management
Tools: Figma, Wix, Illustrator, InDesign, Adobe After Effects

Project Overview

The Caleta San José Ecolodge is a paradise oasis on the sunny pacific coast of Peru. Their mission is to offer guests a full immersion into their private coastal reserve, including lessons about sustainability at sea, snorkelling, whale sightings, as well as top notch quality rooms and restaurant on site. Being involved in big sustainability projects at the lodge, the owners never had the time and opportunity to finally put their natural paradise online, for everybody to see. I had the honour of working with them during my volunteering experience earlier this year and making their dream finally come true.

My contributions

One of the biggest challenges the stakeholders had, was making very clear on the website where their Lodge was located, and how it could be reached. Being easily reachable in an isolated area of Peru, is not as easy as we know it to be in Europe: no official roads lead up to the lodge, so the ever-so-useful google maps Call to Action on the website did in fact not help guests out, who had a reservation and came from all different parts of Peru. I created an animated video on Adobe After Effects for the website and their social media platforms that made all the routes clear to arrive at the Lodge safely.

[data-wf-bgvideo-fallback-img] { display: none; } @media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) { [data-wf-bgvideo-fallback-img] { position: absolute; z-index: -100; display: inline-block; height: 100%; width: 100%; object-fit: cover; } }

The beauty and the struggle of being off-the-grid

First goal

One of the biggest challenges the stakeholders had, was making very clear on the website where their Lodge was located, and how it could be reached. Being easily reachable in an isolated area of Peru, is not as easy as we know it to be in Europe: no official roads lead up to the lodge, so the ever-so-useful google maps Call to Action on the website did in fact not help guests out, who had a reservation and came from all different parts of Peru. I created an animated video on Adobe After Effects for the website and their social media platforms that made all the routes clear to arrive at the Lodge safely.

Mobile first

Second goal

The website was designed to be mobile first for multiple reasons. Starting with a quick and easy survey for guests that stayed at the Lodge, we found out quickly that 98% percent of them purely navigated on mobile to find, book, and reach out to a hotel. In addition to that, their main communication strategy to be in contact with guests was WhatsApp - the mobile website allows a seamless transition form website to texting, with just one click.

[data-wf-bgvideo-fallback-img] { display: none; } @media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) { [data-wf-bgvideo-fallback-img] { position: absolute; z-index: -100; display: inline-block; height: 100%; width: 100%; object-fit: cover; } }

I’m driven by the belief that no budget or resources limit should deprive a business of having a functional, user friendly, and visually pleasing website. That is the reason why I treat complex projects and smaller MVP projects with the same passion and understanding all the way through.

Individual solution of unique circumstances

Third goal

The Caleta Eco Lodge Team had just enough resources to let me create a design, including the extra assets and video needed, that I then successfully recreated on their Wix profile. Marketing was not included in the project at that point, but we managed to now also put the Ecolodge on different booking platforms for better reach.

Photoshop may not respond, but I will.

If you like what you see and want to work together, get in touch!

zoe.bottelli@gmail.com