The Whitsundays: Where the 74 islands are
One site for 74 islands, the reef and the mainland: Tourism Whitsundays’ source of truth, built to correct the geography and send travellers on to Operators.
Visit tourismwhitsundays.com.au (opens in a new tab)- Client
- Tourism Whitsundays
- Region
- Queensland
- Edition
- Tourism Edition
The challenge
Seventy-four islands, a reef and a mainland, in a geography travellers get wrong. Tourism Whitsundays commissioned Roam to build the region’s definitive source of truth: one site connecting Airlie Beach, the islands, the reef and the mainland, correcting the geography and spreading visitation across the islands and the shoulder seasons.
Two things made it hard. The first is scale: 74 islands in a region that is 70 per cent national park, most of them uninhabited; a mainland of four towns; fringing reefs around the islands, and the outer reef at Hardy Reef, where trips normally take about two to three hours from Airlie Beach. The site’s job was to put the region’s icons (Whitehaven Beach and Hill Inlet, Heart Reef, the Great Barrier Reef) in their geographical place: Airlie Beach as the mainland gateway for tours, ferries and sailing, the islands around it, and the mainland towns as four reasons to stay longer.
The second is the commercial test. The brief set a minimum target of 7% of outbound traffic referred to Operators, and the site is built around it. A site that inspires but never hands the traveller on to the people who run the boats, the flights and the resorts has failed the brief.
What we built
Design approach
The brand line is “Naturally Iconic”, and the design takes it at its word. The home page opens on Heart Reef from the air under that line, with one sentence beneath it: “Here, we let nature do the talking.” Wide display type, short headlines that end in full stops (“Nature’s Greatest Hits.”, “Your Next Adventure.”, “Plan Your Escape.”) and full-bleed photography set a confident rhythm. The Operator pathway sits at the point of decision.
Content and information architecture
The architecture corrects the map. The region is organised into Icons, Islands and Mainland, with Experiences as the fourth door. Icons gives Whitehaven Beach and Hill Inlet, Heart Reef and the Great Barrier Reef their own chapter and says plainly: Heart Reef is protected and cannot be accessed for snorkelling or diving, so the way to see it is from the air, with in-water time at the lagoons and pontoons of Hardy Reef nearby. Islands answers “Find Your Island.” with the five that welcome overnight guests (Hayman, Camp, Daydream, Long and Hamilton) and the reminder that most of the 74 are national park that day visitors can still reach. Mainland, “Where The Road Meets The Reef.”, gives Airlie Beach, Bowen, Collinsville and Proserpine equal billing as four reasons to stay longer, with Cedar Creek Falls, Hydeaway Bay and Lake Proserpine behind them.
On top of the places sit the people. “Plan Your Escape.” routes Visitors by the trip they want: Your Family Escape, Your Next Adventure, Naturally Iconic, Your Romantic Getaway, Your Quiet Place. Each is a curated page for that traveller.
Spreading visitation beyond the icons was an objective of the brief, and the content gives it somewhere to go. Stop-by-stop itineraries cover the icons across five days, but they also take travellers to Bowen and Collinsville for mango country and pub meals, to Proserpine and Cedar Creek Falls for coffee, history and freshwater, and to Dingo Beach and Hydeaway Bay for a long coastal lunch. The guides reach past the headline places too: going off-grid on Long Island, a day-tripper’s guide to Bowen, camping and fishing at Lake Proserpine.
The site carries the client’s Acknowledgement of Country in its footer.
Platform features
- Products. Hundreds of them, from Operator experiences, stays and dining to destinations and trails, with facilities, contact details and a “Find Us” map on Mapbox.
- Instant search by category across Experiences, Stay, What’s On and Eat & Drink.
- Itineraries that run day by day and stop by stop; the Airlie Beach three-day itinerary closes on “Book This Itinerary” with the Operators behind it.
- Events. A What’s On feed of markets, music, sport and community events through the Everi integration.
- Editorial. Planning guides on the best way to see Heart Reef and the best time to visit, and a FAQ that carries FAQ schema so answer engines can read it.
- AI Discovery (included on every Roam site). The site’s llms.txt is live and dated, giving AI assistants a clear description of the region.
- Also on the site. A deals page, newsletter sign-up, accessibility support via Userway, and the organisation’s industry pages (Member Centre, Trade Centre, Media Centre) on the same site.
The outcome
The site’s FAQ answers the Reef question directly: “Is The Whitsundays part of the Great Barrier Reef? Yes. The Whitsunday Islands and surrounding waters sit within the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.” Mainland sits beside Icons and Islands as a top-level door, with Airlie Beach, Bowen, Collinsville and Proserpine given equal billing, and its pages point to the Operators behind them.
The work was recognised at the national tier of the Australian Design Awards, in Digital - Travel.
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