Lario Servizi – case study

Lario Servizi gathers the businesses of Lake Como in one place — companies, craftspeople, shops and restaurants — addressing tourists, residents and businesses at the same time. Three audiences looking for different things in the same catalogue.

The constraint that shaped the project

A portal like this lives on being current. If a central editorial team fills in the listings, half of them are stale within six months: changed opening hours, expired offers, numbers that no longer answer. To stay useful, each business has to manage its own listing — and that moves the problem from content to access, that is, to a members' area simple enough for someone who logs in twice a year.

How it works

• A directory of local businesses, browsable by category for people who do not yet know what they are looking for.
• Italian, English and German: on Lake Como a German-speaking visitor is not an edge case.
• A members' area where listed businesses update their own entry without going through anyone.
• Offers and deals published directly by the participants.

The part you do not see

Three languages are not three translations. They are three versions of every listing that somebody has to fill in, and the certainty that somebody will not: the system has to work when the German description is missing, showing something sensible instead of an empty space. It is the least visible part of a multilingual site and the one that decides whether it holds up over time.