Travel Agency Website / Web-Community - Design, Build, Test, Launch

My start-up is launching a travel agency website offering luxury adventure holidays. We are looking for a skilled web-designer to take the page hierarchy structure, content files & design brief created; work up spec's for us to agree; and then build, test & launch the site on our domain. I am an ex-IT program manager, so should be realistic / easy to work with, and I will listen to views on improvements to structure, design & tech. I will need you to provide timeline breakdowns for the work and guide me on how we keep the site flexible for future extensions. I will expect regular progress reports. The initial content will include: landing page, customer data capture, authority micro-site and full e-business website (with holiday products pages, map / filter / search functionality, secure purchasing, admin back-office area, user area, online community / blog / soc-net feeds and live web chat. We will also need to link in feeder domains to get the right traffic to our site and earn income from referral clicks. I have identified sites as a guide for all key features (see [login to view URL] & [login to view URL]) - so the ability to reproduce these sorts of sites to the same standard is important. We will launch with ~50 products but develop the catalogue (in size and complexity) over time. As the business develops there will be further work and we may look at a support contract. I have worked remotely from my IT team for years and know the value of full specification up front. I request an initial bid on the project deliverables as outlined, but do advice further extensions as extras, to evidence your experience. I will select a package that best fits the ongoing needs of the business. The right contract bidder should share proof/testimony of web-design, build, test experience and have online-community building skills. I am open to providing clarifications before you bid if you need more information! The work should be your top priority on acceptance of your bid and launch will need to be complete before 31 Mar 2011. I look forward to building an interesting and exciting site together! Rob PS. We will own all copyrights to work upon payment. Any content, coding & features shall be unique and reuse will not be permitted without written permission (case by case). Non Disclosure Agreement will be required. ## Deliverables A key member of our team has taken extended time off for a family funeral and this has delayed delayed the start of this project by 1 month. There is a consequent change in the proposed live date - so that the duration of the project remains identical. If you need to withdraw your bid on schedule grounds please do so with our thanks and apologies.