Scaling Trip Content with an Internal CMS
An internal CMS enabling scalable trip content creation and homepage discovery.
TIME
Jan. 2024
company
PI Travel
Team
1 Product Manager,
3 Product Designer,
6 Engineers,
1 Data Analyst,
2 Operations,
2 Strategy Lead,
1 QA
overview
As PI Travel scaled, the operations team was responsible for managing trip templates, POIs, and featured content. However, updates required engineering support, making publishing slow and error-prone.
I led the design of an internal CMS that enabled the operations team to independently manage trip content, templates, and publishing workflows at scale.
overview
Powering Scalable Trip Content Management
with an Internal CMS
As PiTravel grew, the product team began expanding richer trip content to reduce drop-off in the discovery experience. As the volume of curated trips increased, managing content across teams became increasingly difficult.
I designed an internal CMS in collaboration with an engineer that enabled the operations team to manage and publish trip content independently.
problem breakdown
⏳
Content Updates Relied on
Engineering Support
Even small updates required engineers. Since engineering bandwidth was focused on product features, content changes were often delayed.
📄
No clear publishing workflow
across teams
Without defined draft, review, and publish states, content changes lacked visibility and created confusion across teams.
🧩
content lacked structured management
Key data such as POIs, destinations, and curated trips were managed inconsistently, making reuse and bulk updates difficult.
📅
limited resources and Tight timeline
Designers and engineers needed to focus on other product work, so the internal CMS needed to be delivered quickly with a lightweight solution.
goal
The internal sync helped us to quickly define our focus areas
visibility
Improve visibility and control across the publishing workflow.
flexibility
Enable flexible content publishing without engineering support.
Structure
Structure trip content for scalable management.
process
Publishing Workflow before & after
I started by mapping the existing and ideal workflow for managing content across teams. This helped us identify where manual coordination and engineering support were required before content could be published.
organize the data Structure
After optimizing the workflow, I focused on organizing the underlying data structure to support CMS content modules. Existing trip content was structured into a library of regions, POIs, and trips, enabling operations to configure featured trips and campaign placements independently.
solution
01 · Clear visibility and control
Region & Point Of Interest (POI)
Bulk Manager
A structured dashboard for adding, filtering, and monitoring POIs at scale, with clear status visibility and quick inline actions for daily content updates.
02 · Flexible publishing workflows
Curated Events &
Featured Trips Scheduler
A configurable page for managing homepage featured trips and campaign content. Supports template setup, attaching POIs by ID, batch publishing, and role-based approvals.
03 · Structured content management
Detailed Trip Content Pool
A centralized content pool with filtering, metadata management, and quick preview. Batch actions help operations manage and update trip content more efficiently.
impact
2× Faster
Content Publishing time
Reduced publishing time from 3 days to under 1 day through batch editing and structured admin tools.
Enabled Independent Content Operations
Structured POI and trip template management allowed operations to publish content without engineering support.
80% of Users
Explored Trip Details
More frequent content updates drove over 80% of DAU into trip detail pages, indicating stronger engagement beyond the homepage feed.
reflection
Thinking Beyond the Interface…
✉️ Get in touch for more details. ✈️
Looking back as I revisited this project in 2026,
I was reminded that well-designed internal systems often determine the scalability of a product. Behind the interface, products like PiTravel are fundamentally driven by content : how it is structured, managed, and flows through the system.
Due to confidentiality, some implementation details aren’t shown here, but feel free to reach out if you'd like to learn more!!!
Examples from earlier explorations of presenting trip content in the discovery experience.
Trip template: “Aranya Theatre Festival – Classic Drama Highlights”
POI recommendations with place details and related information