A trust-first travel website and mobile App design for a couples-first brand
30 Sundays, a couples-only travel brand from India. We designed their website and native app from scratch, with an AI trip-guide mascot as an always-on companion.
The problem: a category-first brand stuck in a generic-looking website
30 Sundays sits in a genuinely underserved corner of travel. Most Indian travel agents recycle the same itineraries for honeymooners, families, and solo travellers, same hotels, same photo-op stops, same schedule. Couples get sold group-tour legs: dressed up in pastel fonts, 30 Sundays exists precisely to fix that, curating trips with couple-friendly stays, activities vetted for two, and on-ground partners who understand the audience.
The problem: the old website did not tell that story. It looked like every other travel site, cluttered, generic, low on visual warmth, and short on trust cues. On the app side, there was no product at all. A category-defining positioning was being funnelled through a category-average experience.
Specifically, we uncovered:
A homepage that led with promotions and destination tiles instead of the couples-first positioning, the one thing that made 30 Sundays worth choosing over a bigger competitor.
Weak trust signals above the fold, no clear proof of curation quality, no couple-specific testimonials, no visible on-ground validation.
Visual language misaligned with brand personality, the site looked transactional, not experiential. In a category where the buying decision is emotional.
A mobile app requirement with no existing product foundation, every module had to be defined, benchmarked, and designed from zero, with AI-assisted trip support planned as a differentiator.
What does a travel website and mobile app design project involve for a niche travel brand?
A travel website and mobile app design project for a niche travel brand covers brand-aligned visual design, conversion-focused information architecture, itinerary and destination page structures, trust-building content patterns, and, for the app, module-level UX for search, booking, trip management, and in-trip support. Done well, it turns positioning into a product experience users can feel within the first few seconds.
Our approach: positioning first, then product
We ran the engagement in four phases, treating the website and the app as two products serving the same brand story rather than two disconnected redesigns.
Discovery & brand-personality mapping
We started by pulling apart what 30 Sundays actually stood for and where the old experience was leaking that meaning. Beach, palm, sand, warmth, slow mornings, these were not decoration. They were the product.
Information architecture rethink
We restructured the homepage section by section, leading with the couples-first proof, then curated destinations, then real-couple itineraries, then the curation process, then social proof. Each section earns the scroll below it.
Visual system & web design
We built the interface around a coastal-warm theme, sandy neutrals, sunset accents, hand-scripted headers for emotional books, structured sans-serif for functional copy, so the site feels like the vacation it is selling.
Mobile App, module-by-module design
For every app module, we ran competitive benchmarking, defined the user flow, wireframed the interaction, and designed the UI. The AI trip-guide mascot was designed as a fully-formed character, visibly Indian, visibly a guide, not a generic chat bubble.
Key design decisions
Leading the homepage with positioning, not inventory
Problem → The old site opened with destination tiles, which flattened 30 Sundays into 'just another travel site with pretty photos.'
Solution → We opened the redesigned homepage with the couples-first promise ('Saving Relationships, One Vacation at a Time'), backed immediately by a three-column proof strip, Made for Couples, Price Transparency, No Tourist Traps, before any destination appears on screen.
Reasoning → In a low-trust, high-consideration purchase like a couple's international holiday, buyers are choosing a brand before they choose a destination. The homepage now sells the 'why us' before the 'where to.' Positioning drives the scroll; inventory catches it.
Making trust cues load-bearing, not decorative
Problem → The old experience treated trust cues as afterthoughts, a small testimonial block near the footer, a Google rating badge tucked away. Users hit a 'book with confidence?' wall before they reached them.
Solution → We layered trust throughout: Google review score and 'Run by IIT-M, Apple team' credentials directly under the hero, real couple itineraries with real names and real photos as a dedicated section, a Rigorous Curation Process block explaining hotel and activity vetting, and a testimonial rail with couple identities visible.
Reasoning → Trust in travel is cumulative. Users are not persuaded by one big trust badge, they are persuaded by many small, specific proofs. Distributing them across the scroll keeps confidence rising as intent rises.
Designing the AI trip guide as a character, not a chatbot
Problem → An in-app AI chatbot helper is a category cliché, every travel app has one, most feel like a search bar in disguise. It would have added surface area without adding brand equity.
Solution → We designed a mascot that visually reads as an Indian trip guide, someone the user could imagine actually meeting at the destination, and built the AI Guide module around that character. It is not a floating assistant icon; it is a companion with a face, sitting inside a purpose-built module alongside trip shorts, restaurant picks, and one-place ticket storage.
Reasoning → For an Indian couple travelling abroad, often on their first international trip, the anxiety is not 'will the app answer my question.' It is 'will someone actually help me if things go wrong.' A character-led AI closes that emotional gap in a way a generic chatbot cannot.
The outcome
Post-launch, both the website and the app landed well with internal stakeholders and existing customers, the redesigned site now visibly reflects the brand personality it always claimed, and the app shipped as a complete, cohesive product rather than a feature checklist.
Concrete wins from the engagement:
A homepage that leads with positioning, backed by four discrete trust-building sections above the itinerary browse.
A full native mobile app shipped from zero, every module benchmarked, flowed, and designed as part of one system.
A signature AI trip-guide mascot that gives 30 Sundays a differentiating asset no direct competitor currently owns.
A visual system, coastal palette, script-and-sans typographic pairing, real-couple imagery, that carries cleanly across web and app.
Client testimonial
Finding a good UI/UX agency is tough. Especially the UX part, because it needs a deep understanding of the consumer and their pain points. I recently worked with Hexcode Designs for 30 Sundays and was super impressed with their user-first thinking. They work less like an agency and more like a plug-and-play product & design partner.
Kshitij Chaudhary
Co-Founder & CEO at 30 Sundays
Building a trust-led travel brand?
If you are running a travel or hospitality brand where the buying decision is emotional and your current site is not selling the way your business actually feels, that is a design problem, and it is solvable.
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