Universal Vacations, a property management company in Fort Myers, FL offers holiday homes to guests as an alternative to the usual hotel or motel accommodation. A locally solid and growing company, the leadership at Universal Vacations knew they had a good thing going, but understood that even a good thing needs an update from time to time. Much in the vein of Apple and their operating systems iOS 4, iOS 5, and iOS 6, Universal Vacations knew they didn’t need a brand new design. They just needed to update the backend and clean up the presentation.
Business Fusion: Working Together is in Everyone’s Best Interest
Atilus believes very strongly in forging successful relationships with other like-minded companies and working together toward a mutual benefit. Through a partnership with a local IT Networking firm—SWFL Tech Group—Universal Vacations came in with a need to update their content management solution and property search software, but were frustrated with the old website’s inability to handle the new add-on technology.
Working with another firm, especially one very close to our own industry, can be tricky. There is, of course, overlap of service offerings and experts in similar fields who at times can have differing opinions. Yet, when all sides understand cooperation over competition and seek the best for the client first and each other second, true success stories are born.
Updating and Upgrading the Back-end System
We were contacted from the IT firm because of our history working with complicated programming challenges. Due to the older nature of the website, their add-on backend system, WebLink, could not upgrade itself from version 3 to version 4. Errors in the coding and breakdowns from aged site configuration were getting in the way of an upgrading property search function, more secure backend and easy-to-use customer features.
Based on multiple conversations with President Gary Young and the Universal Vacations team, target research and our own experience, we provided the following solutions:
- Troubleshoot Issues with the WebLink4 Upgrade
- Redesign Website to Make it Compatible with WebLink4
- Reorganize Content for an Easy-to-Use Website
- Search Engine Optimization
- Content Management System
Atilus was able to provide Universal Vacations with an upgraded back-end content management system and a homepage that puts the website visitor right on the beach, including optimized content for search engine rankings. Through our easy-to-use back end features, the Universal Vacations team is able to upload new blog posts and event information quickly and easily.
“Great guys to work with. The end result is very worthwhile and I highly recommend Atilus to anyone.”
-Gary Young, President of Universal Vacations
Universal Vacations in Fort Myers, FL and Around the Globe
Universal Vacations’ headquarters is located in Fort Myers, Florida, a popular area for recreation and vacations for many years. In business since 1987, they opened their first office in New Port Richey on Florida’s Gulf coast. Over the last two decades Universal Vacations has built strong relationships with market leaders throughout the travel industry, such as Virgin Holidays, Thomson, Jetsave, Thomas Cook, First Choice, TUI and New World Travel.
Atilus is thankful for the opportunity to work with Universal Vacations and is glad to be able to help a good, quality company accomplish their goals. We look forward to working with Universal Vacations in the future and being a friend to all the wonderful visitors to the southwest Florida area from across the world!
For more information on Universal Vacations and to check out their new website for potential vacation rentals, visit www.univacus.com.
