Colonial Williamsburg has a diverse set of audiences, from day-trippers to history buffs and teachers to corporate event planners. These audiences had been served in silos by websites that delivered poorly on the Foundation’s mission: to offer a compelling civic education for all, including those who might never visit.

Digital Pulp’s solution: Merge these distinct sites into one cohesive experience that educates both on-site and online visitors, offers visitor information, and serves those who want to stay at Colonial Williamsburg Resorts, the Foundation’s for-profit arm that helps fund its core mission.

We knew that an engaging museum website would evoke the on-site experience. An early insight set the stage: This was, and is, a real town, and as in any town, everything is connected. We created an interactive component to literally connect the dots.

Our unified website offered the opportunity to make online booking effortless for visitors. Colonial Williamsburg had relied on a patchwork of legacy booking systems — from custom ticketing and events management platforms to separate systems for hotel, spa, golf and dining reservations. We made the complexity invisible by building the unified platform on the flexible, open-source Wagtail CMS and React framework. The API integrations and smooth handoffs Digital Pulp engineered let users plan their entire visit — from reserving a hayride to booking a room — in one place and without ever feeling that they’ve left the site. The digital experience is as immersive as the physical one.