The 2-Week Sprint: Building Ngân Hà Tourist’s Digital Gateway

Every successful project starts with a challenge, and for Ngân Hà Tourist, a burgeoning travel and tourism company, their challenge was simple: they needed a professional online presence, fast. What began as a three-month side commitment for me quickly became an intense, two-week sprint to deliver a complete, functional travel website. This is the story of how a small, focused team (myself) turned a vague idea into a digital reality.Defining the Destination

The client had a vision but lacked a clear roadmap. My first task was to translate their broad goals into concrete, actionable requirements. We settled on a lean, cost-effective solution:

• Primary Goal: Information Display. The website’s main function would be to showcase tour programs, departure schedules, and company services.
• Core Structure: A simple, foundational site featuring the crucial pages: Home, About Us, and Contact. We planned to advise them on adding News and Promotions pages later.
• Cost Efficiency: To keep costs low and launch quickly, we intentionally excluded direct online booking and payment features, reserving that for a future upgrade.
• Customer Engagement: The website would serve as the central information hub, driving customers to connect directly via telephone or through linked social channels like Zalo and Fanpage for personalized consultation.

Assembling the Tools

With the requirements locked in, I needed a dependable platform. I chose WordPress—a system I know intimately—and assembled a powerful toolkit of essential plugins:

• Foundation: We established the necessary infrastructure, guiding the client through setting up the domain, web hosting, and email services through PAVietnam.
• The Engine: WPTravelEngine became the backbone of the site. It provided virtually every travel-specific feature the project needed, from tour listings to scheduling.
• The Translator: LocoTranslate was crucial for localizing WPTravelEngine’s interface into Vietnamese, ensuring a seamless experience for both the client and their customers.
• The Optimizer: YoastSEO was implemented to lay a strong foundation for search engine visibility, a national standard for WordPress sites.
• The Stylist: I included the Carousel Slider Block GIT to create dynamic, auto-running image and text sliders for the homepage’s visual appeal.

The 8-Step Launch Sequence

The implementation was a methodical sequence of steps, executed with precision:

1. Infrastructure: Finalized the PAVietnam hosting and domain accounts.
2. Platform Setup: Installed and configured WordPress on the new hosting.
3. Tool Installation: Added all the necessary plugins from our prepared list.
4. Content & UI: Began customizing the website’s appearance and filling the primary pages (Home, Contact, About Us) with content.
5. Localization: Undertook the detailed task of translating the WPTravelEngine interface.
6. Data Input: Began entering all the company’s travel tour information.
7. Handover & Review: Presented the completed website to the client for their feedback.
8. Final Polish: Applied client-requested updates and created detailed video tutorials to empower the Ngân Hà team to manage their new site.

The Client is Always Right

The project was a success, launching a fully functional travel portal at nganhatourist.com.vn in record time. However, every storyteller knows a great narrative needs tension. My personal challenge lay in a single aesthetic detail: the font.

Despite my best efforts and conviction that the client’s preferred “sans-serif” choice didn’t align with their logo’s design, the client was resolute. In the end, as is often the case in client work, I conceded—because the client is always right. The important takeaway was the successful and rapid delivery of a robust platform, a digital gateway ready to welcome travelers.

This project was a powerful reminder that speed, strategic tool selection, and a commitment to the core requirements can overcome even the tightest deadlines. And sometimes, you just have to let the client have their font.