Marketing for Rafting Companies: 16% Increase in Revenue

Nikki DeSantis • January 3, 2024

For over five decades, Western River Expeditions has been at the forefront of adventure tourism, guiding enthusiastic travelers through the awe-inspiring landscapes of the Western United States. With a legacy built on exploration and a passion for the great outdoors, Western River Expeditions has painstakingly curated and perfected what they confidently assert to be the ultimate white water rafting vacations available anywhere on the globe.

western river expeditions homepage image for resmarkweb case study

The Challenge

Western River Expeditions launched their first website in 1999. Many various small-scale improvements were made over the years, but the website was outdated, not mobile friendly, and static (meaning only those with coding knowledge could make changes). While it may have looked great to customers, it needed some vital updates to improve the overall user experience.

The Objective

Our team set out to build a site that is organized both for the consumer and the website administrators. This was done by utilizing a CMS and GitHub, which allows every code change to be logged and reverted. It was also critical to maintain current search rankings and lower page load speeds.

western river expeditions order value, conversions and site page statistics

“After an incredibly smooth launch of our new website, we are so happy with the results! Our reservations team loves the new site along with the control to quickly and easily make updates to any pages. ResmarkWeb put together a content management system that is so easy to use. The site is performing incredibly well and our trips are booking faster than ever before! Within just a few months, we've already made back the cost of the investment in the new website.”

- Brian Merrill, CEO

western river expeditions online revenue increase 16 percent

The Result

When the new westernriver.com was launched, we saw almost immediate positive results. The existing search engine rankings were not only maintained but improved due to better usability of the site, a more modern codebase, and better content. New keywords based on our strategy also ranked quickly and performed exceptionally well after the launch. The team of reservation agents felt empowered knowing they can make content changes on their own.

Even after integrating a CMS, adding higher quality/larger images, and video the overall site page load decreased by 20%. Since the site launch overall lead conversions increased by 32%, average order value increased over 9%, and online revenue increased over 16%. Western River made their return on investment within the first year!