We had been handling the hosting for Rural Retreats for some time, and in late 2007 we took up discussions regarding their website services. It was at the time, a chore to manage all the properties on different property management systems for different advertisers.

We sat down with Rural frequently discussing what solutions would benefit them, and how we could make their life easier. We put together a design specification for Rural and spent further time refining this specification until they were completely happy with it. We then drafted up a graphical design, and went through several revisions to again, ensure they were absolutely happy with every detail on the site.

After having approval for both the site specification and design, we implemented the site, which consisted of two sections: France and Italy. It combined both of their existing sites ensuring the end user had a clear view of what they could provide, and gave simplicity to the main feature of the site: finding properties.

We provided custom enquiry forms, property search pages and image galleries and included a quality back end system that let them manage all their properties at the click of a button. They are able to export all or some of their properties (quantities of their choosing) to an XML feed that is either password protected or IP protected. They are able to manage all their locales, meaning they can add extra towns in France or Italy should they need to advertise in a region that is not listed. We provided, as standard, a full listing of all the departments/regions in France, including many hundreds of towns. This means that they have minimal administration for when adding any properties.