Transforming the online cruise booking journey with a seamless and conversion-driven UX

In 2019, Spain's cruise market was booming, with 553,000 cruise passengers and 4.3% year-over-year growth. Physical travel agencies captured 75–80% of offline sales, but the online channel was steadily growing, gaining 2% market share annually.

BtheTravelBrand, part of Ávoris Group (Barceló) with over 700 physical branches, dominated the offline channel but held only 1% of the online market. With rising passenger numbers and growing digital sales, the market was ripe for digital expansion.

The problem(s)

When Ávoris approached me, they identified several problems and friction points limiting their online channel's performance.

• 

  Underperforming digital channel

  Fragmented and inconsistent.

• 

  Inefficient funnel

  Friction prevented users from completing bookings.

• 

  Complex search & booking

  Navigation made cruise selection difficult.

• 

  Strong competition

  OTAs offered seamless booking experiences.

The Challenge

To seize Spain's growing cruise demand, Ávoris needed to rebuild their digital platform from the ground up—transforming an underperforming online channel into a high-converting, multi-brand experience.

• Complete revamp Rebuild the digital experience from the ground up—design, tech, and operations.
• Optimize the funnel Reduce friction across the booking journey to turn browsers into buyers.
• Build a scalable platform Create a white-label system deployable across multiple brands simultaneously.

My role & Approach

As solo Product Designer, I partnered with business, product, and engineering to design the B2C/B2B booking experience end-to-end—facilitating alignment across 6 cross-functional departments (business, IT, marketing, content, backoffice, customer success).

With no dedicated UX research team, I employed a lean, multi-method approach to build actionable insights quickly. This combined quantitative data from analytics with qualitative input from customer-facing teams and real users.

Competitive Benchmarking

Analyzed Spain's online cruise market landscape, mapping 10 direct competitors across four strategic segments. Logitravel emerged as the primary reference model—combining massive traffic (2.5M+ visits) with best-in-class UX that validated our hypothesis: reducing cognitive load through progressive disclosure directly correlates with conversion, even in complex product categories.

• Simplified search wins – 3 core fields, expandable advanced filters
• Transparent pricing builds trust – All-in pricing from results page
• Clear progress indicators reduce anxiety – Visible steppers for complex flows
• Visible support lowers anxiety – Sticky chat and trust signals throughout
• Mobile-first matters – Optimized for touch, spacing, and speed

Guerrilla User Interviews

Conducted 5 rapid interviews with Spanish cruise bookers (ages 29-62) at travel fairs and agency branches. Questions focused on previous booking experiences, decision-making criteria, pain points, and device usage patterns. This validated agent insights and exposed emotional drivers beyond data.

User Personas & Customer journey

Four distinct personas emerged from synthesizing these inputs, representing the full spectrum of Ávoris' target audience. To translate personas into actionable design priorities, we mapped María's end-to-end journey as a representative case

Key Insights

• Search paralysis – Users couldn't efficiently narrow 200+ cruise options; lacking intuitive filters caused early abandonment
• Hidden costs erode trust – Unclear pricing with late-revealed fees drove users away during checkout
• Mobile-first reality – High mobile traffic but desktop-optimized experience created friction
• Support vacuum – No accessible help during booking increased anxiety at critical decision moments
• Value proposition buried – Poor information hierarchy made it difficult to assess options quickly

Problem Statements by Journey Stage

• Discovery / Landing Users can't quickly understand value or find relevant cruises → high bounce rate (49.5%)
• Search Too many parameters overwhelm users → cognitive overload prevents search completion
• Results / Compare Lack of visual hierarchy and filtering makes comparison impossible → users exit to competitors
• Selection Unclear cabin options and pricing hide total cost → trust issues prevent progression
• Booking Complex multi-step forms without progress indicators or autofill → abandonment at 40%
• Post-Booking No confirmation clarity or next-steps guidance → support calls increase

Funnel Mapping

Mapped the complete conversion funnel across five stages (Adquisición, Atracción, Evaluación, Conversión, Fidelización), identifying critical pages and touchpoints where users experienced friction. This visualization became the foundation for prioritizing optimization efforts—focusing on mid-to-low funnel stages where drop-off was highest.

Each funnel stage mapped directly to personas' pain points and HMW questions, creating a clear design roadmap validated by data.

Design Principles Framework

Drawing from competitive benchmarking and industry standards, we defined key principles for each funnel stage—from clear CTAs and benefit-oriented messaging on landing pages, to transparent pricing and progress indicators during booking.

These principles guided all design decisions and ensured alignment across the 6 cross-functional teams, making it easy for business, marketing, and dev to understand the rationale behind each choice.

Information Architecture & User flow

The existing IA was fragmented across brands with inconsistent navigation patterns. I restructured around user mental models, not business units—creating a unified taxonomy scalable for white-label deployment.

Journey-Based Wireframe Roadmap

Structured the wireframe roadmap around the three critical journey stages: Attraction (Home, Search), Evaluation (Results, Cruise Detail, Availability), and Conversion (Checkout, Payment). Each screen was designed with modular components that could be reused across stages, ensuring consistency while allowing flexibility for brand customization. This systematic approach enabled rapid iteration and seamless handoff to development.

Wireframing & Exploration

Working closely with Ávoris' cross-functional team, I designed, tested, and iterated dozens of wireframe versions—refining the storefront and conversion funnel through continuous stakeholder feedback. Started with lo-fi sketches to rapidly test layout concepts, avoiding pixel-perfect debates. Key explorations included search box simplification (from 8 fields to 3 with expandable filters), results page layouts (hybrid card/list view), and checkout flow optimization (single-page with sectioned accordion). This iterative process identified friction points and built toward a modular system ready for white-label integration.

The high-fidelity design combined usability principles with visual polish—clean information hierarchy, accessible color systems, and responsive layouts optimized for mobile and desktop. Modular components and token-based theming enabled rapid multi-brand rollout while ensuring consistency across the booking journey. Every interaction, from search to checkout, was refined to reduce friction and build user confidence.

The Challenge

Ávoris needed to deploy this redesign across 4 distinct brands (BtheTravelBrand, Halcón Viajes, BTravel, Viajes Ecuador) simultaneously—each with unique visual identities but shared functional requirements. A full design system was out of scope; we needed a lightweight, flexible foundation.

The Approach: Puzzle-Piece Modularity

Rather than building a comprehensive design system, I created a token-based component library that functioned like puzzle pieces—each module self-contained, fully reusable, and themeable through variable swapping.

After launch, the funnel delivered measurable business results. Conversion increased by 212.75%, abandonment rates dropped sharply, and Ávoris’ digital channel began to capture meaningful share of Spain’s growing cruise market.

Customer satisfaction also improved. Surveys and analytics confirmed smoother navigation, fewer drop-offs, and higher task completion. The redesign became a benchmark within the organization for data-driven UX success.

Engaging stakeholders early avoided misalignment and accelerated approval cycles. Cross-functional collaboration between design, dev, and marketing ensured both usability and business goals were addressed effectively.

The introduction of a lightweight design system sped up delivery and created consistency across screens. This approach informed later SaaS work, proving the value of scalable design infrastructure even in short-term projects.