Sector(s)
Team Members
visitBerlin.de is the official travel portal for the city of Berlin, operated by visitBerlin. The website promotes Berlin as both a tourist and congress destination, inspiring and informing visitors about the city's offerings. It also serves as a booking platform. As one of the leading tourism websites, it is continually evolving and serves as an example of using Drupal for large-scale tourism portals.
Features and Challenges
Since late 2024, the site offers an AI chatbot based on Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). Relevant content is periodically converted into LLM embeddings and stored in vector databases. This enables the chatbot to provide detailed, nuanced answers that reflect the most current content on visitBerlin.de.
The blog, blog.visitberlin.de, initially hosted on WordPress, was fully integrated into Drupal. It now features a dedicated theme within Drupal, while blog content remains fully reusable across all views of the main visitBerlin.de theme, clearly identified as blog content.
With the upgrade to Drupal 10, the Panelizer module was discontinued. Pages previously managed by Panelizer were transitioned to the Layout Builder, and all relevant content was successfully migrated.
Additionally, the backend now includes a sophisticated map application. This tool allows the creation of customized map displays, such as route planners and tour guides. To ensure data sovereignty, the maps are self-hosted on the basis of an open source map stack.
Drupal’s compatibility with various search servers has enabled the integration of Solr-based search technologies, enhancing the user experience with fast and accurate search results.
Back to topContinuous Development
To maintain its status as a cutting-edge tourism platform, a dedicated web development team handles ongoing site enhancements. The team consists of specialists in concept design, frontend and backend development, and DevOps. Their mission is to ensure that Berlin is presented as an exceptional travel destination through a state-of-the-art website.
In parallel, the extensive editorial team benefits from a constantly optimized backend environment, equipped with the latest tools to make their work more efficient and enjoyable.
Back to topDrupal for Tourism
City tourism websites differ from standard marketing platforms as they need to promote a diverse array of offerings to a highly heterogeneous audience. The visitBerlin.de website therefore follows the approach of offering a wide range of services on dynamic entry pages that contain specific offers tailored to the respective target group. In this way, young backpackers will find relevant content just as easily as those interested in high-quality cultural and culinary offerings. Drupal 10’s core functionality and flexible modules make it the ideal solution for meeting these needs.
Back to topCMS and Server Integration
Handling temporary traffic spikes from special promotions, media coverage, or seasonal events is a significant challenge. To address this, extensive work has been invested in optimizing the interaction between the CMS and server-side caching. This ensures the system can handle unexpected surges without requiring excessive server resources. Additionally, other server-side tools like Apache Solr are seamlessly integrated with the CMS to enhance functionality.
Back to topData Protection and Accessibility
Data protection and accessibility are particularly important in Berlin. The visitBerlin.de website undergoes regular testing and optimization to meet these standards. The core system and all modules are carefully reviewed for data protection compliance, with any updates or changes involving personal data promptly documented in updated privacy reports.
Accessibility is equally prioritized, with regular external audits ensuring the site consistently meets or exceeds WCAG Level AA-AAA standards. Continuous improvements are made to guarantee an inclusive user experience for all visitors.
Back to topThe Result
As the system is continually being developed, the journey remains the goal. visitBerlin.de sets the standard for the current state-of-the-art application of Drupal and maintains this standard by using the latest Drupal features and the new developments of Drupal functions by the project team.
Back to topvisitBerlin has relied on Drupal as the CMS for visitBerlin.de since the days of Drupal 6. Drupal was chosen from the start for its robust, taxonomy-based lateral navigation, consistent content indexing, and extensive selection of modules, making it the top choice among open-source systems.
Over time, the website has undergone several relaunches and constant improvements, advancing to Drupal 10 with a wide array of features. Key to its success in the tourism sector are Drupal’s capabilities for multilingual support, multi-templating, and flexible, dynamic content integration.
Technical Specifications
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