I was responsible for design tweaks and ActionScripting of the interactive Flash portions of OzPlanner, whilst freelancing at DLKW Dialogue.

The original brief set by the Australian Tourist Commission was to "Challenge consumers' preconceptions about visiting Australia by showing them how an action-packed holiday can be achieved in as little as two weeks". From this OzPlanner was developed: an interactive tool showing what's on offer at popular destinations in Australia, and which allows the user to build a customised "itinerary" of activities, which can then be forwarded to friends and tour operators.

There are 3 steps to creating your own holiday with OzPlanner:

  • Explore: The visitor picks one of ten themed routes across Australia. Each of the routes, when rolled over, reveals a text description, an animation of roughly where the route will take them, and some sample images of activities that can be chosen in step two...
  • Customise: Ten activities are presented, which, when rolled over, reveal a panel containing some information about the activity, including its location and duration. The user drags and drops the activities onto and off of a two-week timeline, building their ideal holiday. The timeline can extend to four weeks if the user so desires.
  • Review: The Flash then passes a string of variables to an ASP page, which in turn builds the itinerary in a printable format. This page also contains options to forward to tour operators and friends.

OzPlanner has proved an effective tool for generating return on investment: within one month, over 22,000 people had used the OzPlanner tool, and 1500 trips were booked as a direct result of the campaign, at an average value of £3500 per trip.

It has now been translated into French, German and Italian.

Additionally, OzPlanner has also garnered a number of accolades:

  • Gold award winner at Direct Marketing Awards 2003
  • Nominated for 2 BIMA 2003 awards (Best Integrated Campaign and Travel & Leisure categories)
  • Silver winner at CIMtIG Travel Advertising Awards 2003
  • Nominated for Best Travel Site at the New Media Awards 2003
  • Winner of TravelMole Web Award 2003

See OzPlanner here at its own URL.

Flash 5. Finished: 24/01/2003
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