New Bamboo and Tourdust launches interactive website to bring back the magic of personal travel experiences

...Networking site created using Ruby on Rails and Agile methodology...

Thursday 8th January 2009, New Bamboo, the specialist in bespoke software development using Ruby on Rails, has partnered with Clearleft to develop a new interactive travel website for Tourdust. A beta version of the site went live in December 2008 and aims to bring together a wide range of authentic and local tour operators from around the world with independent travellers that are looking for ‘off the beaten track’ travel experiences.

Users can navigate around the website www.tourdust.com by selecting the region they wish to travel (Africa, Asia, Europe, South Pacific) or the activities they are interested in such as wildlife, culture, food, cycling or snorkelling. The site also encourages travellers to post their own local finds, review products on the site and add their own photos.  Experienced providers are also encouraged to link up with each other to offer complimentary products to interested travellers.

Ben Colclough, Co-founder and Director, Tourdust said: “Our site is all about our passion for authentic travel experiences.  Our ultimate goal is to bring together all these hard to find unique experiences into one place, to give the providers the tools to create inspiring and great looking listings and to promote them to travellers around the world. A key part of this is to create a community of travellers that share our passion.”

“Once the development process started and the site started coming together we found we had loads of new ideas, including a changed business model.  The Agile methodology allowed us to reprioritise and make refinements to our web project without impacting on our schedule or cost. We found the combination of Ruby on Rails and Agile hugely powerful, flexible and cost effective.  The New Bamboo development team was extremely supportive and brilliant at guiding us through the development process to ensure that we got the best results.  They were always on hand to give advice and challenge our decisions, drawing on their impressive experience and oodles of common sense.” Colclough.

Max Williams, Co-Founder of New Bamboo said: "We are seeing a trend towards Agile as companies recognise it as a means of achieving better results which fit the needs of the business much more effectively. It is a lean process which gets the most return from limited resources. It actively encourages prioritisation and avoids wasted effort."

“By partnering with Clearleft, we were able to ensure that the entire web experience, from navigation to the design interface was a positive experience for all users. Tourdust is an excellent example of an interactive service and  brings together individuals around the world” adds Williams.

Tourdust offers a number of varied personalised travel experiences from Tapas tours of Seville, Kayaking in the Scottish Islands, and riding on a fynbos reserve in the Western Cape of South Africa.

New Bamboo has several industry-leading clients in market segments that include business consultancy, global publishing and international not-for-profit organisations.