Lviv.travel attracted 300,000+ foreign visitors in the first year after launch
Project:
the project
No digital gateway for Ukraine's cultural capital
With 2.2 million annual visitors, travelers faced scattered information and outdated sources. Tourists pieced together trips from blogs, outdated directories, and unofficial and often misleading guides. For an internationally known city, this was a structural gap: high interest but low digital discoverability and planning efficiency.
Lviv needed a unified digital platform to help tourists efficiently discover and plan their journeys through the city's rich historical and cultural offerings.
That’s where Lazarev.agency came in.
Tourists felt the impact in the first year of launch
Visitors immediately discovered what they'd been missing — a coherent platform where planning their Lviv journey became effortless. International travelers could finally access comprehensive information about attractions, events, and cultural sites without navigating multiple outdated sources.
Foreign tourist arrivals increased considerably in the first year after launch.
Reduction in tourist information requests to local administration offices.
The Project’s
Discovery Phase
Created a unified city platform for 2.2 million annual visitors
Before we engaged, Lviv was leaving tourism revenue on the table. International travelers researching the city landed on a patchwork of outdated listings, with no authoritative source to convert their interest into a booked trip. For a city competing with Krakow and Prague for the same Eastern European travel budget, such a fragmented digital footprint was a commercial liability.
We consolidated every revenue-relevant touchpoint (attractions, dining, events, the paid City Card program, curated itineraries) into one navigation system.
The homepage leads with three credibility anchors (2.2M annual visitors, founded 1256, UNESCO status) because international travelers convert faster when a destination signals scale and legitimacy upfront.
The filterable event calendar was built to capture demand from a high-value segment — festival and conference travelers, who spend more and stay longer. The bilingual, mobile-first build was a deliberate move to reach foreign visitors where 70%+ of travel research happens: on a phone, in English.
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13 travel and tourism web design companies proving design drives bookings
Made the map the city's primary discovery and revenue engine
A tourism map is where intent becomes itinerary and where a city either captures spend or loses it. Lviv's existing tools forced travelers to triangulate across Google Maps and PDF guides, breaking the planning flow just as they were ready to commit.
Lazarev.agency rebuilt the map as the platform's commercial hub. Filters map directly to how visitors make decisions: through Recommendations, Places, Landmarks, and Family Leisure tabs.
The paid City Card program is woven into discovery itself: every eligible venue carries a City Card badge. The save-to-favorites feature keeps users in the ecosystem between sessions, and the mobile-first build captures the second, higher-intent wave of decisions — when a tourist is already in the city deciding what to do next.
Designed personal travel tools to convert browsers into committed visitors
Tourists who can't save what they find leave with nothing. Every forgotten attraction is a missed visit, a missed City Card purchase, a missed restaurant booking. Lviv had no way to retain the intent travelers were already showing.
Lazarev.agency built a personal layer into the platform: wish-lists across attractions, events, and venues, plus curated guide-lists that let visitors assemble their own itineraries before they ever land. Saving is acknowledged with clear, on-brand feedback (green for added, red for removed), so the interaction feels rewarding enough to repeat. Because saved items persist across sessions, the platform becomes a return destination. And with much of the saved inventory being City Card–eligible, every item a tourist saves makes the paid pass an easier sell.
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FAQ
How can tourism platform design increase international visitor numbers?
Most destinations lose visitors before they ever pack a bag. The trip looks too complicated, the information is scattered, the planning takes too long and someone picks an easier city instead. A well-designed tourism platform removes that friction. Attractions, events, routes, and navigation in one place means visitors spend less time researching and more time deciding. And when the decision is easy, more of them follow through.
Why is a unified digital gateway important for top tourist cities?
Top destinations require a centralized platform to maintain credibility and control their narrative. Without it, travelers rely on fragmented third-party sources that weaken the city’s brand authority.
How do interactive maps improve tourist engagement?
Interactive maps simplify route planning and contextual discovery. They allow travelers to visualize proximity between landmarks and organize efficient exploration paths, increasing time spent on the platform.
What features encourage active trip planning on tourism websites?
Planning a trip is something else entirely and most platforms never make that shift happen. Wish-lists, saved locations, event bookmarking, structured guides, these allow actual itinerary building. Visitors come back, go deeper, and arrive already knowing where they're headed.
Why is mobile optimization critical for tourism platforms?
Tourists consult their phones constantly between stops, at intersections, and over lunch. A platform that works only on a desktop is half a platform. Mobile optimization means maps load fast, saved itineraries are accessible without a strong signal, and nearby attractions surface without friction. The platform becomes a travel companion. Visitors stay oriented, stay engaged, and make better use of their time in the city.
How can digital platforms reduce administrative workload for cities?
More than most cities expect. A significant share of tourist inquiries: directions, opening hours, event schedules, and neighborhood recommendations are questions a well-structured platform can answer on its own.
When visitors can find everything themselves, the volume of calls, emails, and front-desk questions drops sharply. In this case, administrative inquiries fell 85% after launch. Staff time shifts away from repeating basic information and toward work that requires a human.
When should a city invest in a tourism platform redesign?
Investment becomes critical when visitor information is fragmented, international positioning lacks clarity, or digital infrastructure does not reflect the city’s global standing. Strategic tourism platform design can directly influence tourism growth metrics.
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