Daydreaming about your next vacation? Perhaps you’re considering a dog sled adventure in Alaska. Or maybe you want something more relaxing, like a train tour through Switzerland. No matter what type of getaway you’re in the mood for, APT Travel Group has you covered with a portfolio of six travel brands and more than 500 getaways, ranging from luxury river cruises to island hopping by way of private jet.
While this variety and volume of offerings are great for customers, it used to be a headache to manage thanks to a rigid, outdated CMS. Over time, Sitecore proved difficult to use, requiring developer support to make even the slightest tweak to a product listing. This slowed production and diverted resources from modernizing the digital experience, creating a gap between APT Travel Group’s websites and its premium offerings. It also stalled new initiatives like personalizing content for various audience segments.
Eager to correct this, APT decided to replace Sitecore and adopt a more agile, editor-friendly digital experience platform.
Chartering a more flexible digital experience platform
APT Travel Group first brought in an expert — Merkle, a tenured digital transformation consultancy — to examine business needs and identify possible solutions.
They determined that APT Travel Group would need an integration-ready, editor-friendly, and headless solution. This type of tool would connect well with the third-party and custom-built apps APT Travel Group was already using — like Bynder for media management, Algolia for search, plus their tour management and booking engine, which were both built in-house. APT Travel Group also needed a way to bring together content from its six distinct brands — each with its own voice, audience, and offerings. Teams across these brands often found themselves recreating the same content and sourcing travel experiences attached to different itineraries or those that are available during multiple seasons. By unifying everything into a single source of truth, they could not only ensure consistency but also make it easier to reuse and adapt content across brands, saving time and preserving brand integrity.
Merkle and APT Travel Group sent RFPs to four promising vendors, and after reviewing each bid, one really stood out: Contentful.
“The thing that set Contentful apart was flexibility. It meant we didn’t have to conform to the limited integrations of the other platforms,” said Josh Strachan, General Manager of Technology at APT Travel Group.
A high-end redesign for the highest-end travel experiences
After a successful pilot in early 2024, APT Group and Merkle began a full-scale migration to Contentful. They also took this opportunity to redesign their websites, adding higher-quality imagery of specific destinations and lux accommodations from cabins to cruise ships. By December that same year, they had all six brand-specific websites up and running with a localized version of each one in six languages, for a total of 36 websites.
"The volume of assets we needed to bring together and reformat to support the redesign was enormous. Historically, this would have been impossible, but with Contentful, our product team was able to really own that part of the project. And they completed it in 3 days!” said Elle Davidson, Digital Product Owner at APT Travel Group.
Contentful and Bynder are also allowing the product team to adjust the size, focus, and quality of media without leaving Contentful, which has dramatically helped speed up the process.
“We've just released a collection of new, high-end cruises. With Contentful, there is richer imagery and more details on what’s included in specific tour packages and who will be guiding customers throughout that experience,” noted Davidson.
The redesigned photo-forward websites gained immediate traction. APT Travel Group saw an immediate increase in customer engagement — a 175% increase in online transactions and a 15% increase in basket size.
“We’re having thousands more inquiries into our travel experiences, and our team is having to ramp up service. Exceeding our original expectations for the project has opened up a larger conversation about how to improve our lead life cycle,” added Strachan.
Getting on board with editorial autonomy
Contentful has also enabled more team members to create and publish content, with no technical skills needed. With a relatively flat learning curve, the group’s digital producers, editors, and product owners had the basics of Contentful down in less than an hour.
“They found the editorial interface very intuitive and easy to navigate,” said Davidson. “What they love most about it, though, is being able to go into the platform and have the autonomy and agency to edit things themselves, rather than having to pass through another team.”
This autonomy enables smoother content operations and quicker launches — critical advantages as APT Travel Group responds to growing customer demand for personalized experiences. The only exception? Managing their business-critical webpages requires careful oversight to maintain quality and consistency. APT Travel Group partnered with Contentful Professional Services to design and implement a governance model that empowers select team members to steward these key pages. This approach safeguards brand integrity, streamlines workflows, and ensures updates are intentional and aligned with business goals.
The best souvenir: Digital modernization success
APT’s move to Contentful marked a strategic leap in digital transformation, driving operational efficiency while embracing innovation. By adopting a flexible, user-friendly platform, APT aligned its digital presence with its core goals: simplifying processes, deepening customer engagement, and bringing the richness of its offerings to life online.
“Moving from Sitecore to Contentful has dramatically changed how we organize content and present our products. With Contentful, we can curate a luxury online experience that articulates and complements the premium quality of our offerings, which is super important when your website is your storefront,” shared Strachan.
Today, every online moment is a seamless extension of APT Travel Group’s luxury experience, giving customers a glimpse of what to expect after booking.
About Merkle
Merkle, a dentsu company, powers the experience economy. For more than 35 years, the company has put people at the heart of its approach to digital business transformation. As the only integrated experience consultancy in the world with a heritage in data science and business performance, Merkle delivers holistic, end-to-end experiences that drive growth, engagement, and loyalty. Merkle’s expertise has earned recognition as a “Leader” by top industry analyst firms, in categories such as digital transformation and commerce, experience design, engineering and technology integration, digital marketing, data science, CRM and loyalty, and customer data management. With more than 16,000 employees, Merkle operates in 30+ countries throughout the Americas, EMEA, and APAC.
