Big Bus Tours, the largest global operator of premium open-top sightseeing tours, has launched a brand new, industry game-changing consumer website. The new digital experience comes as the company adapts to the fast-evolving digital needs of domestic and international travellers – ensuring a seamless journey for all customers on the go.

Big Bus Tours is the first open-top sightseeing tour operator worldwide to release on the Magento 2.0 e-commerce platform. The new visually enticing site, www.bigbustours.com, designed and developed by Born, orientates visitors across each city, providing destination highlight overviews, city holiday tips and guidance on the most suitable city sightseeing tour option for their needs. The site also integrates a more streamlined, easy to use booking function that also allows travellers to purchase further attraction tickets in advance, ensuring users can plan their city adventure ahead of time and maximize their city travel experience, through one single transaction.

The award-winning platform – which was recently named the number one digital commerce platform provider to the Internet Retailer Top 1000 for the fourth year – is the leading commerce platform for global retail brands. The Big Bus Tours Magento 2.0 website relaunch marks its first foray in to the sightseeing tourism sector.

With the rise of tourists seeking information via mobile devices, Big Bus Tours was keen to re-develop the website and utilise Magento 2.0 to create a digital consumer offering that would enable visitors to plan their city adventure, whilst providing a more mobile-friendly shopping experience. The new platform has already seen overall traffic to the Big Bus Tours site increase by 40%, with a growth of 14% organic search traffic, year on year. Results also show users are taking less time to convert and need to browse fewer pages before completing a transaction.

The site is fully optimized and responsive for use on all devices, enabling customers to purchase tickets on the move. This is critical for Big Bus Tours after seeing a 53% increase in mobile traffic – the largest source by device type, since the start of the year. In addition, mobile conversion has increased 7% year on year, since the launch of the new website. The site also links seamlessly with Big Bus Tours' new app, detailing routes, times and landmarks – ensuring customers possess the tools to navigate their sightseeing experience simply and enjoyably.

Alex Payne, Chief Customer Officer at Big Bus Tours, commented, “Big Bus Tours prides itself on listening to our customers and placing their needs at the forefront of company developments. With substantial research undertaken across all markets over the past year, we have found the online experience – particularly by mobile device – imperative to the customer journey. As the only travel company in the UK to use such a platform we see this as a game-changer for the industry, the platform enables us to quickly adapt to ensure ease of use for our customers ahead of, and during, travel.”

For more information visit www.bigbustours.com

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Notes to editor:

Big Bus Tours is the largest operator of open-top sightseeing tours in the world, providing sightseeing tours in 20 cities across four continents. The family-owned business commenced operations in London in June 1991 with a fleet of just three buses which have since been expanded to a fleet of 400 buses in cities such as Abu Dhabi, Budapest, Dubai, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Muscat, Paris, Rome, Vienna and various destinations across the USA, most recently launching in Brisbane, Darwin and Sydney.  As Big Bus began its journey more than 25 years ago, Les Cars Rouges in Paris also started to build a strong business, with the two merging in 2011 to create a single unified company. In February 2015, private equity firm Exponent purchased Big Bus Tours, with a shared vision to develop the company into the most recognizable brand in sightseeing. This year Merlin Entertainments PLC became a shareholder, offering a natural synergy with Big Bus Tours and Merlin attractions and experiences globally. Big Bus Tours' sightseeing formula has been designed to provide a flexible approach to city discovery. Each open-top bus tour provides a hop-on, hop-off facility at a variety of interesting locations and, wherever possible, Big Bus Tours looks to enhance the visitor sightseeing experience by providing complementary experiences. The Big Bus Tours app can be downloaded at www.bigbustours.com/app

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Polly Beech at polly@blackdiamond.co.uk / 020 7845 6359

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