Explorer Goes Live with TravelSandbox® by freshcells – Two Business Models, One Platform
Düsseldorf, May 2026 - Explorer World of Travel, a specialist in round trips and individual travel for over 50 years and part of the Schauinsland-Reisen Group since 2024, has completely restructured its digital sales operations using the TravelSandbox® by freshcells.
After the successful relaunch of schauinsland-reisen.de on the TravelSandbox® on October 7, 2025, Explorer is now following suit with a fundamentally different business model on the exact same technological foundation: individually configurable round trips and individual travel instead of classic package holidays. 50+ Years of Individual Travel Expertise, New Digital Demands Explorer was originally founded in 1970 as "Explorer Afrika Expeditionen" and is today a renowned specialist in tailor-made round trips and individual travel worldwide. The Düsseldorf-based company offers hundreds of travel suggestions across 75 countries — ranging from round trips through Portugal to coastal routes along Australia's east coast. Following its majority acquisition by the Schauinsland-Reisen Group, Explorer faced a central challenge: building a future-proof e-commerce solution capable of mapping the highly specialized round-trip and individual travel segment while simultaneously leveraging technological synergies with Schauinsland-Reisen. TravelSandbox® with MACH Architecture as the Foundation for Flexible Travel E-Commerce freshcells was chosen as the development partner and deployed a modern MACH architecture (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless). At the core of this setup is the Fusion and TravelSandbox® middleware, which acts as the central integration and aggregation layer between product sources, third-party systems, and the frontend. For Schauinsland-Reisen, the middleware encapsulates the Amadeus connection as the core product source for package holidays. For Explorer World of Travel, Nezasa is now integrated as the product source for individually configurable round trips and individual travel. Both brands — despite having completely different product profiles — run on a shared codebase without compromising on customization or performance. Product sources and third-party systems are entirely interchangeable thanks to the API-first architecture. This means that neither Schauinsland-Reisen nor Explorer is locked into a single provider on the product source side, gaining flexibility for the future development of their portfolios. freshcells was responsible for the projects end-to-end: from conceptual design and solution architecture to implementation and hosting in a cloud infrastructure, ensuring seamless operations via 24/7 SLAs and continuous further development. Nezasa and TravelSandbox®: Individually Configurable Round Trips in E-Commerce By combining the TravelSandbox® as an e-commerce platform with Nezasa as the product system, customers can find a packaged round trip right at the beginning of the booking phase and subsequently expand it with additional services such as activities, further flights, and hotels in different destinations into a completely individual round trip. The products are presented with richer content and a more appealing design than before — featuring visual route planning and video integration, travelers get a tangible preview of their experiences and included services before booking online. "freshcells didn't just build an impressive platform; they truly immersed themselves in our product model. The TravelSandbox® not only handles the technical complexity of our customizable round trips but actually brings them to life for our customers. At the same time, our team now has the tools to manage content and offers independently and easily." — Heike Niederberghaus, Managing Director of Explorer World of Travel Explorer thus benefits from the full functionality of the TravelSandbox® and the strengths of the Nezasa application for advanced planning options. The Nezasa content was embedded into the open architecture of the TravelSandbox® middleware via interfaces (APIs). This allows for a customized booking experience tailored specifically to the unique nature of Explorer's products. Thanks to the open architecture, additional product sources and components can be seamlessly integrated in the future to continuously expand the portfolio. freshMS®: Content and Commerce on a Single Page For editorial management, Explorer relies on freshMS®, the content and marketing management system developed by freshcells. freshMS® is directly integrated into the TravelSandbox® and utilizes the shared middleware layer — allowing it, unlike traditional CMS solutions, to access tourism product data directly. On a single page, editors combine static content, such as text, images, and videos, with dynamic commerce data, such as live prices, availability, and hotel or trip information drawn directly from the connected product and content systems. Enterprise Capability Proven in Over 100 Projects The TravelSandbox® platform has been battle-tested across more than 100 projects — including ADAC Reisen, Eurowings Holidays, and DER Touristik brands such as Kuoni and lastminute.ch. The wide range of client profiles, spanning niche tour operators, classic package holiday providers, and airlines with dedicated holiday brands, highlights the flexibility of the solution. "We are delighted to welcome Explorer as a highly satisfied customer. With Explorer, we are demonstrating what makes the TravelSandbox® stand out as an enterprise platform: it handles the highly specialized round-trip and individual travel segment just as effortlessly as Schauinsland-Reisen's high-volume package holiday business — using the exact same technological foundation, with the same middleware, but delivering a completely unique booking experience. Integrating Nezasa as an additional product source alongside Amadeus for Schauinsland-Reisen once again underlines the multi-source capability of our architecture." — Tom Hülser, CEO of freshcells systems engineering GmbH A Partnership of Equals From the very beginning, the collaboration between Explorer and freshcells has been characterized by a highly constructive and collaborative spirit — with short communication channels and a team that proactively thinks ahead. Both sides continue to work closely together post-go-live to continuously develop the platform.
Return to overviewAfter the successful relaunch of schauinsland-reisen.de on the TravelSandbox® on October 7, 2025, Explorer is now following suit with a fundamentally different business model on the exact same technological foundation: individually configurable round trips and individual travel instead of classic package holidays. 50+ Years of Individual Travel Expertise, New Digital Demands Explorer was originally founded in 1970 as "Explorer Afrika Expeditionen" and is today a renowned specialist in tailor-made round trips and individual travel worldwide. The Düsseldorf-based company offers hundreds of travel suggestions across 75 countries — ranging from round trips through Portugal to coastal routes along Australia's east coast. Following its majority acquisition by the Schauinsland-Reisen Group, Explorer faced a central challenge: building a future-proof e-commerce solution capable of mapping the highly specialized round-trip and individual travel segment while simultaneously leveraging technological synergies with Schauinsland-Reisen. TravelSandbox® with MACH Architecture as the Foundation for Flexible Travel E-Commerce freshcells was chosen as the development partner and deployed a modern MACH architecture (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless). At the core of this setup is the Fusion and TravelSandbox® middleware, which acts as the central integration and aggregation layer between product sources, third-party systems, and the frontend. For Schauinsland-Reisen, the middleware encapsulates the Amadeus connection as the core product source for package holidays. For Explorer World of Travel, Nezasa is now integrated as the product source for individually configurable round trips and individual travel. Both brands — despite having completely different product profiles — run on a shared codebase without compromising on customization or performance. Product sources and third-party systems are entirely interchangeable thanks to the API-first architecture. This means that neither Schauinsland-Reisen nor Explorer is locked into a single provider on the product source side, gaining flexibility for the future development of their portfolios. freshcells was responsible for the projects end-to-end: from conceptual design and solution architecture to implementation and hosting in a cloud infrastructure, ensuring seamless operations via 24/7 SLAs and continuous further development. Nezasa and TravelSandbox®: Individually Configurable Round Trips in E-Commerce By combining the TravelSandbox® as an e-commerce platform with Nezasa as the product system, customers can find a packaged round trip right at the beginning of the booking phase and subsequently expand it with additional services such as activities, further flights, and hotels in different destinations into a completely individual round trip. The products are presented with richer content and a more appealing design than before — featuring visual route planning and video integration, travelers get a tangible preview of their experiences and included services before booking online. "freshcells didn't just build an impressive platform; they truly immersed themselves in our product model. The TravelSandbox® not only handles the technical complexity of our customizable round trips but actually brings them to life for our customers. At the same time, our team now has the tools to manage content and offers independently and easily." — Heike Niederberghaus, Managing Director of Explorer World of Travel Explorer thus benefits from the full functionality of the TravelSandbox® and the strengths of the Nezasa application for advanced planning options. The Nezasa content was embedded into the open architecture of the TravelSandbox® middleware via interfaces (APIs). This allows for a customized booking experience tailored specifically to the unique nature of Explorer's products. Thanks to the open architecture, additional product sources and components can be seamlessly integrated in the future to continuously expand the portfolio. freshMS®: Content and Commerce on a Single Page For editorial management, Explorer relies on freshMS®, the content and marketing management system developed by freshcells. freshMS® is directly integrated into the TravelSandbox® and utilizes the shared middleware layer — allowing it, unlike traditional CMS solutions, to access tourism product data directly. On a single page, editors combine static content, such as text, images, and videos, with dynamic commerce data, such as live prices, availability, and hotel or trip information drawn directly from the connected product and content systems. Enterprise Capability Proven in Over 100 Projects The TravelSandbox® platform has been battle-tested across more than 100 projects — including ADAC Reisen, Eurowings Holidays, and DER Touristik brands such as Kuoni and lastminute.ch. The wide range of client profiles, spanning niche tour operators, classic package holiday providers, and airlines with dedicated holiday brands, highlights the flexibility of the solution. "We are delighted to welcome Explorer as a highly satisfied customer. With Explorer, we are demonstrating what makes the TravelSandbox® stand out as an enterprise platform: it handles the highly specialized round-trip and individual travel segment just as effortlessly as Schauinsland-Reisen's high-volume package holiday business — using the exact same technological foundation, with the same middleware, but delivering a completely unique booking experience. Integrating Nezasa as an additional product source alongside Amadeus for Schauinsland-Reisen once again underlines the multi-source capability of our architecture." — Tom Hülser, CEO of freshcells systems engineering GmbH A Partnership of Equals From the very beginning, the collaboration between Explorer and freshcells has been characterized by a highly constructive and collaborative spirit — with short communication channels and a team that proactively thinks ahead. Both sides continue to work closely together post-go-live to continuously develop the platform.
