Semantic designs, creates and optimises websites for visitor attractions around the world. Founded In 1997, it has worked with leading attractions, zoos, theme parks, museums and leisure companies including well-known brands such as Merlin Entertainments, Yorkshire Wildlife Park, iFly and Blackpool Tower. Semantic is a trusted digital partner that has been delivering results for over 25 years. It has now built on that expertise to create a new tool for attractions, LOOP.
LOOP is a unique platform which helps attractions of all shapes and sizes to build engaging and creative websites. It has a wide range of core, add-on, and retainer features, meaning that operators of all sizes can integrate the essential elements that any attraction website needs and allowing them to effortlessly include their own identity into pre-made, ready-to-use modules, guaranteeing a flawless guest experience from the start.
To find out more about the new platform and how it can solve common challenges for attraction operators, we speak to Neil Lewin, owner of Semantic Ltd. He explains why the firm came up with the tool, and how it is saving operators time and money.
The expertise behind LOOP
Having worked with attractions for over two decades, including leisure venues, zoos, theme parks, and tourism brands, Semantic has built up a lot of expertise in terms of what works online, and what doesn’t, says Lewin. With LOOP, it has now brought all that expertise into one package that’s quick to roll out. Rather than needing a full-on bespoke site build and retainer, it’s transforming how attractions can create their websites.
In terms of what the company offers and what makes it unique, he adds:
“We can help with the overall design and build of attraction websites. We also offer web strategy and ongoing support. Within that, what sets us apart is our customer service; we aim to work as partners rather than suppliers.”
Outlining how the idea for LOOP came about, he says:
“Usually, there is quite a high barrier to changing your website. Marketers are so busy, and there is often a feeling of ‘We know we need a new website, but we haven’t got the budget at the moment, and we haven’t got the time.’ Traditionally it might be four to six months of ripping everything up and starting again. As much as we like the process, for a marketer, it’s a bit terrifying.
“That is what led us to create this platform with pre-optimised modules and features that we know attractions need. This means that we can deliver value more quickly to the attractions. They can see the value more quickly because they can get up and running in weeks rather than months. Then we can invest more in the ongoing optimisation and think more in terms of the strategy, rather than recreating the fundamentals from scratch every four or five years.”
Low-effort, effective websites
Attractions need to have a functional, easy-to-use and nice-looking web presence – it’s a no-brainer. LOOP is the fastest way to get them online, says Lewin: “And it’s no hassle going forward. We just keep the site up to date; you don’t need to rebuild it every four or five years. We can keep adding new tech and new design elements throughout, rather than starting again each time.
“LOOP is a low-effort way for clients to get online. So, rather than having all the wireframes and designs, we can just plug in all their branding, colours, fonts, and content. Then we can start prototyping the site almost straight away.”
“We can also add a whole styling layer over the top; users can cherry-pick features that work for their attraction. It’s a little bit like if you are getting a car built; you want to know that it’s got a good engine and all that underlying tech, and then you can say, ‘I love this feature and this feature, I want to customise these bits.’”
For example, if the team adds an AI-powered chatbot, it can just deploy that to all of the LOOP sites that want that functionality, rather than every client having to ask for it to be developed specifically for them.
The trusted tech behind LOOP
Going into more detail about the technology that underpins LOOP, he says:
“We use the Umbraco CMS and are also using their great new cloud architecture. That’s what Merlin has used kind of internationally for its websites. We got onto it from our work with Merlin several years back.”
LOOP was chosen as the Best Cloud Solution Award at this year’s international Umbraco Awards. There were over 300 submissions from around the world, with around 40 other applicants alone in the Best Cloud Solution category, meaning LOOP fought off some tough competition to take the prize.
He continues:
“It offers the kind of CMS functionality you’d expect. Users can easily add opening times, FAQs, news & events, attraction listings and filters, and pretty much everything an attraction needs, whether they’re a new attraction with just a holding page, a campaign and some data capture or an existing attraction looking to either save some costs online or get a better-optimised site.”
LOOP: designed for theme parks, zoos, museums and more
When it comes to which attractions can benefit from using the LOOP platform, he says:
“Many of the sites that we’ve taken on this year have been six or seven years old, where the operator knows that it needs replacing, but hasn’t necessarily got the time of the budget to begin again. With LOOP, we’ve been able to show them that they don’t need as much money as they think, they certainly don’t need as much time and it’s just way easier to get them set up.”
LOOP is suitable for attractions of all types, from theme parks and museums to zoos and aquariums.
“The very large complex attractions, such as venues like Alton Towers, of course, will need something bespoke because they need it to do exactly what they want. And the very small attractions, the one-man-band escape rooms, for example, are probably going to be too small. They’d end up paying too much a month to justify it. But then we serve the wide middle area between those two extremes. We tailor the package level and infrastructure to suit their needs
“We have clients across different sectors. This includes castles and historic houses, gardens, museums, farm attractions, immersive experiences, leisure venues, FECs, theme parks and more. They also don’t have to be in the UK. I think there are a lot of big opportunities for British attraction operators to bring their expertise to the Middle East, for instance.”
LOOP in action
To date, more than 10 attractions have signed up for the new LOOP platform, which launched earlier this year. Some of Semantic’s key clients using the solution include Cotswold Farm Park, Twycross Zoo, Watermouth Castle, and Layered Reality, which operates The Gunpowder Plot Experience in London. Just last month, the flagship Silverstone Museum attraction moved across to LOOP from its four-year-old bespoke site. This allowed it to level up its online capabilities in a matter of weeks.
“The challenge that LOOP has solved for those partners was around taking old websites that were hard to update, or slow, or expensive, or where they had to keep going back and forth with their web design agency for fairly simple updates. With LOOP, flexibility is built in from the beginning. So, clients don’t need to keep coming back to us for a huge amount going forward. Instead, we can focus on strategy.”
“With Twycross Zoo, they were facing a significant cost to redevelop their website. But we were able to give them a demo of LOOP and show them what it would look like and how it works. Once a client is happy with the direction of the designs, we can get that signed off and then go straight to migrating content or importing new content. For instance, Twycross signed the contract at the start of June, and we were live the same month, in time for the Summer Holidays.”
The other challenge that LOOP can solve for partners is the sheer amount of hands-on time that a big web project takes for their internal team, says Lewin.
“It also reduces a lot of the uncertainty for clients. We can show them something polished from that initial pitch meeting or introductory meeting. They don’t have to worry if the result is not how they want it because we can show them exactly what it is and how it works. It reduces a lot of the risk of doing a big project.”
Proven results
Talking about his experience with the platform, Hugh Gledhill, performance marketer at Layered Reality, says:
“Semantic helped us improve the design of our websites earlier last year. We then started the conversation about moving our websites over to Loop. Switching to Loop has helped us increase e-commerce conversion rates on both our current experiences Jeff Wayne’s The War of The Worlds Immersive and The Gunpowder Plot. Loop also allowed us to prototype, test and build much stronger websites for launching our next experiences in 2024.”
When it comes to usability, he adds:
“Loop is easy to use. Semantic provided the whole team with a training session and training videos. They also gave pointers via Slack when we got stuck.
“The main benefit for us is having all our marketing sites and ticketing purchase paths under one CMS, so we can work together on optimising performance. Switching our websites over to Loop was quick and pain-free. We were impressed with the support Semantic gave us on migrating content prior to launch. Semantic has also created new content components to fit the value proposition of our new shows and make the websites more immersive and engaging.”
LOOP at Cotswold Farm Park
Another satisfied customer is Cotswold Farm Park. Archie Wilde, creative marketing executive, says:
“Our WordPress site wasn’t performing…it was slow, plugin-heavy and difficult to manage. When we finally ran the numbers and saw how much it was negatively impacting our bottom line, we knew it was time to act. Accepting that you need to go through the process of commissioning a new website is a daunting concept. So, you can imagine our pleasant surprise when we were introduced to the innovative LOOP platform.”
“We’ve felt at ease throughout the onboarding process. They had a very clear understanding of our and our customer’s needs. The best of all, from sign-off to launch was only a matter of weeks. We were up in time for our peak summer season.
“Since launch, our site load speed has been slashed, bounce rate reduced, and our navigation has been made simple. Visitors are browsing more, booking more often and contacting us less. Their dedication continues into their aftercare and maintenance. We recommend LOOP to any attraction in need of an easy-to-maintain, easy-to-update and user experience-optimised website.”
More improvements to come
The team is constantly working to improve the LOOP platform, adding new functionality that can then easily be rolled out to existing users. When it comes to future developments, there are broad themes and specific updates, he explains:
“Broadly, we are looking at what we can do to bring the online and the on-the-day experience a bit closer. We’re exploring how we can transform the guest experience through good touch points before they visit and when they arrive. And there is loads we could do with AI that we’re working through and getting some ideas for. We’re also looking at the booking integration side and personalisation. We want to help partners target different types of guests and show them more relevant messaging.”
“Ultimately, we want to try and start getting benchmarks and data in there too. That would mean we could say, ‘We’ve got 500 attractions on this platform. If you’re a museum, then we know that if you set it up like this you can boost your conversion rate by 20%.’ That’s what we are building towards.
“In terms of specific updates, we’re looking at having QR code generators and we’re looking at custom reporting dashboards to help marketers get the data they need from month to month, more quickly. We’re looking at getting a much nicer set of interactive map capabilities so that clients just need to upload a graphic and then drop their pins onto it. That, as a feature on a bespoke site, would be many weeks’ worth of work. But if we can just build that in, the value of LOOP keeps growing”
Meeting partners’ needs
These new updates are directly driven by what Semantic’s partners want and need:
“I would say that two-thirds or more of those ideas are coming from client feedback. I think that’s the beauty of it. We now have this pool of clients, and we are getting the best practices and insights from all of them, which helps push the platform forward. When we have an idea, or a client has an idea, and we create a new feature, we can then add it to the core package and roll it out to everyone.
“Right now, we’re rolling out new updates every couple of months, so LOOP is just getting better and better.”
