Brand

Gmela is a Ghanaian travel company creating curated experiences for people who want to explore Ghana beyond the surface.

Gmela needed a digital experience that could communicate what made its trips different while also making the actual process of booking and managing a trip feel simple.

The experience had two connected sides.

The first was the public website: a place to discover Gmela, understand its story, explore available experiences, read reviews, and learn more about Ghana.

The second was the product: an authenticated space where travellers could book tours, submit private trip requests, book consultations, manage their bookings, view payment history, and revisit completed experiences.

I designed the brand and product together, taking the product from concept through detailed UI and working alongside development through implementatio

Problem

Turning a manual travel business into a scalable digital experience

For a traveller, booking a trip to another country involves a much bigger decision: understanding the experience, trusting the company, knowing exactly what is included, making a significant payment, and having somewhere to manage the trip afterwards.

The digital experience therefore needed to do more than showcase beautiful destinations.

It needed to take a traveller through the entire journey:

Discover Ghana → Explore an experience → Understand the trip → Book → Pay → Manage the booking → Look back on the experience

There was also a behind-the-scenes product challenge.

A previous team had already spent roughly three months working on the product without successfully bringing it together. I took over the product design and rebuilt the experience from the ground up, eventually handing it over to development and working with the developer through implementation.

Solution

A platform designed to attract, convert, and manage travelers

I designed Gmela as one connected experience rather than treating the website and product as separate products.

The public experience creates desire and confidence.

The product handles the practical side of travel.

Together, they create a journey that moves from inspiration to transaction to post-trip management.

The core experience was built around five areas:

Landing page
Tour booking
Payment history
My bookings
Tour history

Landing page

Making Ghana feel worth the journey

The goal was to build enough context and trust before asking someone to book.

Photography carries much of the emotional weight, while the editorial typography and restrained visual system give the brand a premium, contemporary travel feel.

Guests and Payment

A simple path from interest to confirmed booking

The booking flow isn't limited to a single traveller. A user can book an experience for multiple guests and add their information during checkout.

The guest step lets the primary traveller provide the necessary details for everyone joining the trip, while keeping the booking summary visible alongside the form.
This was important because travel bookings often involve couples, families, friends, or groups rather than a single person. The experience needed to make adding and reviewing multiple travellers straightforward without making checkout feel overwhelming.

This was important because travel bookings often involve couples, families, friends, or groups rather than a single person. The experience needed to make adding and reviewing multiple travellers straightforward without making checkout feel overwhelming.

Booking expereince

Giving travelers clarity from booking to trip day

Once a traveller finds an experience they are interested in, the tour details page gives them the information needed to make a decision.

Instead of treating the tour as a simple product card, I designed the page around the questions a traveller would naturally have.

They can explore:

The experience overview
Price and trip details
Previous tour photography
The itinerary
What's included
What's excluded
Frequently asked questions
Similar experiences

The booking flow then moves the traveller through three clear stages:

Traveller details → Payment → Confirmation

The checkout also supports multiple payment methods, including card payments, PayPal, Stripe, Apple Pay and Google Pay.

The final confirmation gives the traveller a clear record of the transaction and the option to download their receipt.

More screens

The tools behind the traveler experience

Giving travellers control after payment

A successful payment isn't the end of the experience.

Travellers can access a dedicated payment and bookings history that shows all past transactions and bookings.

The experience includes:

Search
Date filtering
Payment status
Tour details
Transaction references
CSV export

Each transaction opens a detailed view with full payment information.

This turns payment history into a practical tool for verifying, tracking, and retrieving past payments.

Development

Bringing the experience to life

Because the project spans both brand and product, consistency was key.

The visual system carries Gmela’s identity from the public website into the authenticated experience without making the product feel overly decorative.

After designing the product, I handed the work over to development and stayed involved throughout implementation.

That meant working through the details that don't always appear in a static design file — states, interactions, responsive behaviour, edge cases and the practical realities of turning the designs into a working product.

For me, this was an important part of the project because the goal wasn't simply to produce screens. see gmela branding

Outcome

From a digital platform to real-world trips

The platform went on to support real travellers; they had facilitated around 8 trips by the last time I checked in. Within months of launch, Gmela also secured a TripAdvisor listing and grew its offering to 10+ curated experiences across 15+ destinations in Ghana.