Merlin's DevThe idea
Celongo was a company I started to help tour guides in Sri Lanka find more travellers. Every guide got their own website, and every website was part of a funnel that turned visitors into real booking inquiries.
A marketplace that sends travellers to the guides
On celongo.com, travellers searched more than 150 curated tours by destination and browsed them by category: adventure and trekking, cultural heritage, hill country, east coast surfing and more. Every tour card led straight to the guide who runs it.
A website for every guide
Each guide had their own site on their own address, like aliyatours.celongo.com. A tour page opened with a photo gallery and the essentials, and travellers could switch between an overview, a day-by-day itinerary with maps and directions for every stop, and the details of what's included.
From visitor to booking inquiry
The last step of the funnel was the inquiry. Travellers picked a date and group size, added any special requests, and tapped "Reserve on WhatsApp". WhatsApp opened with a booking message already written, naming the tour, the date and the group, so the guide got a ready-to-answer lead instead of a vague "hi".
How it ended
Celongo ran for about a year before I had to close it for financial reasons.