RSVP Media: Some best practices for Hotel Website Design

Hotels go to expensive research to provide the perfect ambiance and atmosphere for their customers. These areas could concern a better scent fragrance in the hotel lobby, a premium toilet paper roll in the toilet facilities, a satellite music system to play 24hours musical program, a unique uniform design by a famous tailor in the city, high end quality of linens and towels, there are really many ways for hotels to be unique.

However, most hotels overlook the importance of having an accessible website that serves as an alternative getaway to draw customers interest in staying at the hotel.

Hotels mostly cater to an international crowd. Other than the frequent business executives or the cabin crew who practically live in hotels most of the year, majority of their clientele have never stayed at their hotel before. The only thing these hotels can do to attract online customers to make a reservation with them is to ensure that they have offer an online booking experience that differs from the others in a positive way. Don't be afraid to spend because the return on investment is far more a hotel booking, as it will create a customer review and many recommendation to other known or network travelers.

What makes an excellent hotel website?

There are many factors to consider when creating an excellent hotel website. It must not only have an attractive design, but must also contain simplicity of navigation, provided relevant information and, above all else, easy functionality. All these work together to help to create a pleasant experience for the user which may very well be the deciding factors customers consider when making a reservation.

Visual Attraction

A picture paints a thousand word. Photographs of the hotel grounds, reception, lobby lounge, business centre, rooms, parking, wellness facilities, and even location maps will allow your customers to get a better idea of what to expect at the hotel.

Relais Margaux

Relais Margaux has a large gallery of photographs that allow customers to look at what they are paying for from various angles. This will help customers to get a sense of security when deciding if it is the right place to spend their money on.

Social, Social, Social

Not everyone you know gets to travel around the world, as such, the best way to get feedback regarding where to stay on your travels is through reviews from satisfied customers.

Reviews are the modern day word of mouth recommendation that can be a big factor customers consider before making any hotel reservations. Social media and viral marketing are a must to consider in your hotel website budget, because it's a powerful tool and you get full analytics/insights through any actions you engage.

Facebook is king of hotels and social media, and is currently the best opportunity to directly improve your hotel's online bookings with social. The key to facebook is creating a compelling and interactive Facebook experience for your guests that encourages guests interaction.

Starwood Hotels

Starwood hotels chain is a pioneer in integrating his customer reviews to his website back in 2005-2006, and this has largely contribute to the success of their online booking program followed by the best rest guaranteed practice. Starwood is investing millions of dollars in its website creativity (design and online marketing jobs at each hotel property).

Functionality

The website of a hotel needs to attract customers visually, but also ensure that it is not the hassle to get the basic information they seek while deciding which hotel to make a reservation with.

The loading time of each webpage should be fast if not customers might get frustrated. And appealing to more than one of your senses can help customers get a taste the quality of service the hotel offers. While customers scroll through pretty photographs of the rooms and hotel's services, they can be treated to pleasant and soothing music as well.

Having an online booking system is important as it allows the busy user to quickly make the necessary reservations without the hassle of waiting for a phone operator to attend for them. A powerful internet booking engine will ensure that it can handle large numbers of booking traffic without any problems. Many small independent hotels choose recently the development ot IT/E-Commerce platforms, but let's be realistic it can only work with a single pricing strategy and limit the possibilities of the hotel for revenue management solutions.

Shangri-La

Beautiful images that don't require any re-loading allows the visitor to enjoy the visual treat on the website. Shangri-La also has a comprehensive booking system that makes it very easy for visitors to use.

Multi-lingual Websites

Hotels hope to target the international market and although English is widely spoken language, hotels should cater to the needs of their customers whose first language isn't english. If the same information given to English speaking customers is also provided in other languages like Arabic, German, French, Mandarin/Cantonese, Japanese etc without having to exit the website, it will greatly increase the chances of the customer choosing to make a reservation with the hotel.

Luxury Corinthia Hotels

Corinthia Hotels, the Malta international hotel operator, is one such examples in which their website allows the customers to choose between languages like English, German, Italian, Russian.

Choice of Colors

Colour schemes used in hotel websites play an important role. Warm and sensual colors are often used as they create a homely and comfortable feeling for their web visitors. After all, a hotel stay is one home away from home. Hotel websites usually have a color scheme of white, blue, black or green because of the symbolic connotations of these colours. White is associated with elegance and purity. Black adds a sense of mystery and Zen like feeling.

Hotel Missoni

Hotel Missoni website designs stand out from the others because of its unique concept and excellent use of colours. Those 2 colours are also very used in the hotel design, checkin experience and in the rooms.