Streamline operations, reduce costs, and beat your competition.
Centralise tools and get more direct bookings, without any hassle!
Run operations on the go and grow your property management business.
There is no point in lying or ignoring the fact that a website is now an essential tool for securing bookings and visibility for hotels, B&Bs and holiday homes. It’s not only something for resorts or and you don’t find just luxury hotel website for stunning properties. An independent hotel or a little cottage have the same need to be visible online.
In short, the entire hospitality sector now relies on a strong online presence. Why? Because if until recently those who had the purchasing power and booked travel were a generation accustomed to direct contact, phone calls and traditional travel agencies, today things are different. The Internet generation now searches for travel by typing on Google. A trend that is already evolving because there are many who search for information on social media like TikTok about hotels and attractions to visit and don’t book from there just because (still) you can’t!
If you also want to design the website for your hotel from scratch or want to give it a new, modern look, read on!
What is the Hospitality Website Design?
Hospitality website design refers to the process of creating and optimizing a website for hotels, resorts, and other related businesses in the hospitality industry. A hotel website is the online representation of a hotel’s brand, amenities, and services, and it plays a crucial role in attracting potential guests and increasing bookings. Nowadays, having an excellent hotel website design is essential for any hotelier who wants to succeed in the highly competitive hospitality industry.
A well-designed hotel website can be a powerful tool to showcase all the beautiful things your hotel has to offer, from its rooms and amenities to its location and local attractions. A good job in designing the website can create a positive first impression on potential guests, conveying the hotel’s professionalism, reliability, and attention to detail. It is your virtual business card. If you can tell your story well, give a demonstration of the care you put into creating your property, then you will also be able to convince users to visit you. From the homepage of your website to the room types page to the testimonials page tell them about all the things your area has to offer, give them added value, so they will be more incentivised.
Furthermore, effective hotel website designs should be user-friendly and easy to navigate. The site should be optimized for mobile devices, as more and more people are using their phones to search for accommodations. A responsive design that adapts to different screen sizes and resolutions is a must-have feature. Don’t forget the aesthetics. It is very important to have stunning images in your website that can show the best of your rooms, amenities and of what you can offer to your guests. You also can embed videos, to show a panoramic from your property or video testimonials, for example. But we will expand on this topic later. As you can see, the website’s design of a hotel includes many things.
In summary, hotel website design is an essential aspect of any hotel’s online presence. It can be a powerful tool to attract and retain guests, showcase the hotel’s amenities and services, and increase bookings. Therefore, you should have a good and user-friendly website and be sure that your site is optimized for search engine optimization.
How do I start a hotel website?
How to make a good hotel website
Creating a website is not child’s play and there are many things to know before embarking on the creation of a website, especially if you want to do it yourself. Don’t worry, we are here to help. Your website, as we said, is the representation of your brand. Starting with the website homepage, everything must speak about you impeccably. If you want the best hotel website designs, you will have to work hard, especially if you are not very familiar with website creation.
- Define your website’s purpose, target, and the website’s design of your hotel, aesthetical-wise.
- Buy a domain on Google that should have the name of your property, to be found easily on Google. In this free e-learning, you can find a step-by-step guide to buy a domain for your website.
- Choose a user-friendly and responsive website platform.
- Ensure that your website’s navigation is intuitive and easy to use, with clear calls-to-action (CTAs) that guide users to book a room or contact you. An idea can be to add an animated menu to organise everything better.
- Optimize your website’s content and images for search engine optimization (SEO) to increase your website’s visibility on search engines like Google.
- Include stunning images and videos of your hotel, rooms, amenities, and local attractions to showcase your hotel’s features and services. Pay attention to the size of the files, however, because the load speed must be high. Videos should always be linked from youtube.
- Provide comprehensive and up-to-date information about your hotel’s amenities, policies, rates, and special offers.
- Make it easy for guests to book a room online with a secure and user-friendly booking engine.
- Integrate social media and online review platforms to encourage guests to share their experiences and leave positive reviews.
Following these steps, is an effective way to create a high-quality hotel website that attracts website visitors, so potential guests, boosts your online presence, and increases your hotel’s bookings and revenue.
Is WordPress a good Idea?
WordPress may be a good idea if you are familiar with this kind of tool. Creating a site from scratch with a professional platform is not easy. This is why website design for hotels is that expensive, Agencies charge exorbitant amounts of money to create a website. So it is your first time with something like this, and you want to get good results by creating a site that works, I would not recommend it.
Custom your website with easy-to-use templates
There are a few of solutions that allow you to create the perfect site to speak about your hotel’s identity, capable of meeting your needs and, above all, capable of attracting guests. Well positioned on Google, thanks to SEO and easy to use. Amenitiz, for example, offers a Website Builder that is easy to use and update.
Amentiz offers an easy-to-use creator that allows you to create, change, add pages, photos, copies, etc, in your website. Using it is simple and intuitive even for those unfamiliar with this kind of thing. Amenitiz’s web designers will create the website for you, as the creation can be included in the package, and then you will be able to change everything every time you want.
What should a hotel website include?
1. Don't forget the booking engine
The homepage of your website must represent your brand with an stunning image of your hotel and above all with an integrated booking engine. Site visitors must be able to book directly and easily from your site. This is crucial for you, because you will be able to offer them a smooth user experience and save them money on commissions to OTAs. One of the main reasons why the homepage has to be the hook of your website is that when searching for a hotel, the so-called ‘Billboard Effect’ occurs: the tendency for people to search for a hotel website after comparing prices on OTAs such as Booking. In this article, I discuss the ‘Billboard effect’ more extensively. So if the homepage of your site has a functioning and reliable booking engine, the customer will book directly on your site. For you, it will be important, not only that the booking engine works well, but also that it is connected to your channel manager and your PMS, so that you have everything organised in an all-in-one solution.
If you want to know more about the best booking engines, you should have a look at this article.
2. Logo, media, and copy
Three fundamental aspects of website design for hotels. They are all very important for your site, because they speak directly about you and your property. The logo is one of the things that will make you recognisable, you can also use it to create your favicon, that small image that appears on the internet search tab, next to your name. This symbol is useful for making your site recognisable when several tabs are open. Photos are also essential, because if they are well done, they will enhance the strong points of your property. Always rely on professionals, photos taken with a mobile phone are no good! As far as copy is concerned, it is the accompanying text and explanations on your site. Be imaginative, but also concise. In your copy, you will give potential customers all the information they may need and show them why they should choose your property.
In The Hotel Club we created a whole e-learning course about the Website creation and all you need to prepare to create your website.
3. Create your community
Your entire website from photos to Copy, to the information you give to your guests is a fundamental part of the website design for your hotel. With a rich and efficient site, you have the possibility of attracting customers who will buy a room from you, but also the possibility of creating a community around your hotel and topics that might relate to it. If, for example, you care about nature because your hotel is located next to a reserve, then you can publish articles and get everyone who shares this passion attached to you. This will create a loyal community, who will come back to you year after year and recommend you to others and will be willing to leave you great reviews if you ask them to.
How much do web designers/agency charge for a website?
Cost, pros and contra
It is well known that website design agencies for hotels are not cheap. The creation process is long even if the results are good, after all, they are professionals. But this also means that they will use platforms that are complex for someone who does not know how to use them. So every time you need to change something, you have to contact them and wait for the changes to be made. Great job, but not very manageable.
The biggest downside is precisely that you do not have the power to change a description or photo yourself, in addition to the costs, which are often very high indeed.