While the outside of the Grand Daddy Boutique Hotel in Cape Town’s famous Long Street recently received a fresh lick of paint, the website for this four-star attraction was also undergoing a change.
Jan and Jaci van Heteren, the hotel's owners, are longstanding clients of Flow Communications, and their keen business acumen was the motivation behind the site's revamp. Recognising the need to be present on mobile platforms, they approached us about a solution that would bring the site in line with modern web standards.
The Flow team has worked with Jaci on a number of projects, and the collaborations have produced good results. The new GrandDaddy.co.za is slick, stylish and fun – much like the hotel itself.
Developer Caven Erasmus took care of the technical aspects of the project, which included the implementation of a responsive layout (this means the website adjusts to whatever device you are viewing it on, so that you can enjoy an optimal browsing experience). Award-winning designer Ryan Levenson conceptualised the new layout, and introduced a few new features, such as parallax scrolling. Stuart Buchanan headed up the content side of things, while Leanne Pohlmann oversaw the project.
"The Grand Daddy hotel is known for its rooftop trailers, of course, but with the new website, we wanted people to discover all the other great features on offer – luxury rooms, a rooftop cinema, and the Sky Bar, for example," said Stuart. "We also simplified the navigation of the website so that people could get straight into booking a room, as many users want to do, or easily browse around for a bit first to find out more."
And the verdict from Jaci? "The revamped Grand Daddy Boutique Hotel website enhances and showcases the individuality, personality and character unique to 'the Grand Daddy', as well as being fully responsive across all platforms – 'Grand Daddy' is very chuffed!"
The website also allows for cross-promotion between Jaci's safari-based lodges outside of Cape Town (see African Secrets Management, Jaci's Lodges and Cheetah Plains), and is the place to find the amazing deals that run throughout the year. For those visiting South Africa and looking for a city and safari combo, GrandDaddy.co.za is the first place you should go.