Gone are the days that had people booking flights and hotels through travel agents or guidebooks. The dawn of the internet and its easy accessibility have made the process of lodging, shopping, and traveling effortless. With a click of a button, you can now access the best hotels in the area, check out their rooms and facilities, guest reviews, and prices, and even get your queries answered, all online, in the simplest manner.
With over 59% of the world's population being online, having an online presence is undoubtedly imperative. If you are a hotel owner or manage a hotel, you need to understand the relevance of having a great website. A good website design lets you stand out from competitors and helps you attract more customers to your hotel business. A professional-looking website demands a good design that will help website visitors interact with the brand while creating a sense of authenticity and trustworthiness.
Outline
- What Makes A Great Website Design?
- Easy navigation
- Clear product details
- Quality content
- Responsive website design
- Balanced color and typography
- Why Do Hotels Need Excellent Website Design?
- Top 10 Website Designs In 2022 For Your Inspiration
- Seven On Shelter Island
- Hotel Particulier Montmartre
- Vesper
- Samsara Ubud
- Badrutt's Palace
- Little Palm Island
- Hotell Nordevik
- Elivi
- DDD Hotel
- Naumi Hotel
- Wrapping Up
I. What Makes A Great Website Design?
A visitor can leave a website without taking any action for reasons such as slow loading, too many ads, lack of CTAs, or relevant contact information. But one of the most prominent reasons is poor website design.
Reasons for a visitor to leave a website. Image Credits
There are several factors that one looks out for when they are booking a hotel. Reviews, rates, and location are some factors influencing a person to consider booking your hotel. 94% of people notice the website's design or look and feel before deciding whether they want to continue checking out the offerings. When potential customers land on your website, you should be able to provide them with adequate information that clarifies all their doubts.
Doing this with zero face-to-face interaction may sound complicated. However, you can achieve this easily with a good User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) design. The best hotel website design that suits your brand depends on your target clientele and the features they look out for. So, if you are looking to create a new hotel website or looking to revamp your current one, here are a few points to keep in mind:
01. Easy navigation
All the best hotel website designs you’ll see out there have one thing in common: ease of navigation. Navigation is key to gaining new customers as well as retaining existing ones. If the website navigation is confusing for visitors leading to limited interaction, you might lose them to your competitor.
Ensure to keep your navigation consistent throughout your web pages so visitors can find the information they are looking for with no trouble. Keep all important information, such as types of rooms, facilities, room rates, etc., easy to find. Remember, simple and intuitive navigation can go a long way!
02. Clear product details
Potential customers visiting your website may have multiple needs they are looking to fulfill. It could be to book a room or banquet for any event, for a meal, or to understand your rates and prices for a future occasion. Keeping this in mind, you should be able to address most, if not all, of your customers' needs through your website while highlighting your brand.
A great website design goes above and beyond to create a trust factor amongst its visitors. This could be through:
- Customer testimonials/ guest reviews
- Customer support
- Years of expertise
- Quality of services
Building trust among your visitors and customers is crucial for your business's success. Brands with a good reputation and after-sales care or customer support can help your brand stand out. By highlighting these on your website, you can gain visitors' attention and turn them into successful customers.
03. Quality content
Quality content is the foundation of any website. High-quality and compelling content attracts customers, allows them to engage with your brand, and converts them into customers. When it comes to a hotel website, this could be in the form of pictures or videos of property, rooms, and other facilities you offer, with a clear description of each service or amenity.
Unattractive content or layout can result in a lack of engagement from your website users, whereas visually rich media can elevate your content marketing to another level! Using an appealing and intuitive layout can help with the right placement of your content and improve your website's overall look.
Importance of high-quality content on a website. Image Credits
Your website might get first-time visitors as well as visitors who had already seen your website before but failed to convert. So, avoid using technical jargon, as all your website visitors may not know them. Instead, use simple and easy-to-understand language throughout your website, and avoid spelling errors. Your content should have logic and should fit into the hierarchy and layout.
If you want to take a step ahead with your content, blogs could be your first choice. Blogs are an excellent way to educate visitors on emerging trends in the industry. You can also create blogs addressing several issues faced by hotel guests or the hospitality industry; hence anyone looking for the same can find a solution on your website.
04. Responsive website design
The user journey on the internet these days is scattered between devices like smartphones, tablets, desktops, and smart TVs. In 2021, over 55% of page views came from mobile phones, and the number of mobile users has increased by 10% already. This steady growth in the number of mobile users has made the need for responsive design an absolute necessity for every website.
Responsive website design. Image Credits
With the majority of online traffic coming from mobile phones, a design that works well on any screen size will help you make your website more mobile-friendly and not lose any mobile users.
With a responsive design, visitors accessing your website through their mobile phones will benefit from a smooth experience without having to zoom in to see your room images or scroll horizontally to see the complete content.
05. Balanced color and typography
Colors and typography have the ability to communicate with visitors and evoke an emotional response. Choose a color palette that fits your brand to maintain a balance throughout. On the other hand, typography should visualize your brand’s voice and stand out. Finally, maintain consistency when it comes to the fonts you use.
- Using more than 3 different fonts may result in an unbalanced design. Use legible fonts that suit your color palette.
- You can use up to 5 different colors for your website. Using colors complimenting each other is the best way to go about it.
If you are confused about finding the right set of colors for your website, you can use any color palette generators available out there.
II. Why Do Hotels Need Excellent Website Design?
The website is the first place your customers will visit to view information about your business. An attractive and structured website will motivate visitors to take action, resulting in more conversions.
SEO web design. Image Credits
In this digital era, you can get customers from anywhere globally with a strong online presence. It can be through social media or a website. The best would be to combine both to get good results. However, if you are doing social media marketing, be sure to avoid mistakes made by most brands out there. In any case, having a unique or interesting hotel website design comes with several benefits, including:
01. Increases conversion rates
According to a study, a good UX design can increase your website conversion rates by up to 400%. A user-friendly website will reduce your bounce rates and improve the chances of your visitors connecting with your brand. A good user experience attracts leads and converts them into successful bookings for your business.
02. Builds trust amongst prospects
Prospects want to know and understand your property's facilities and compare them with competitors before making a decision. To stand out, you can use your website to convey your USPs to the prospects. Don't forget to update your website every now and then with new content so you don't lose customers over an outdated website.
03. Improve rankings
A good web design and SEO is a critical duo for website ranking. You can improve your website’s ranking on search results by ensuring your website design accommodates the following with the proper flow:
- Optimized content
- High-quality images
- Fast loading time across all devices
- Good readability
- Structured navigation
- Alt tags for images
- URL structure
With a higher rank on Google, you can get more customers, traffic, and revenue for your business.
III. Top 10 Website Design In 2022 For Your Inspiration
While most hotel web designs you see are unique in their own way, there are various key pointers to take away from them. So, if you are looking for some inspiration, here are some of the best hotel websites in 2022:
01. Seven on Shelter Island
Seven On Shelter Island is a boutique B&B hotel located in Shelter Island, New York. This award-winning hotel’s website is the epitome of elegance. The color palette, high-quality images, and the accurate use of white space have really brought out a classic and luxurious feeling.
The visual elements present on the website complement the brand story evidently. The website also features:
- Appropriate placement of CTAs for service and product discovery.
- Customer testimonials on the home page.
- Descriptive content for each product and service.
- Single 'Reserve Now' CTA for customers.
- Smooth vertical navigation.
Seven On Shelter Island's website is a true inspiration for luxury hotel websites.
02. Hotel Particulier Montmartre
Said to be one of the most private and smallest Parisian hotels, Hotel Particulier is a private luxury house located in Paris. The website features stunning photographs of the property and descriptive content. In addition, the colors and typography add an elegant touch to the website. The website also has a horizontal navigation menu on its home page for easy browsing.
03. Vesper
The website of this leisure boutique hotel in the Netherlands features a simple layout with warm colors and complimenting typography. Some inspiring visual elements include:
- The homepage features a slow-moving video background.
- Comprehensive navigation menu.
- High-quality and vibrant images.
- Highlighted USPs - complimentary rooms, TripAdvisor rating.
Vesper’s website also allows its visitors to discover Noordwijk and other key attractions in the area, which is an ideal feature for first-time visitors.
04. Samsara Ubud
Another example of a luxury hotel website design is Samsara Ubud. The hotel website conveys its luxury aesthetics with an intuitive layout and multi-directional navigation. In addition, the website uses the property’s stunning images and complimenting typography to convey the brand story. Here’s what makes this website stand out:
- Navigation.
- Crisp and quality pictures.
- Brand story - environment-conscious approach.
The website also has the option to check the room availability on its homepage with two CTAs for easy booking.
05. Badrutt’s Palace
The symmetrical layout of Badrutt’s Palace’s website highlights two seasons, summer and winter. Tourists who wish to travel and experience Switzerland in any of these seasons can click on the CTA to explore their services.
The website design also consists of room images, various packages, and content on their rooms and culinary experiences. Bardutt’s Palace’s website also features pictures taken by their guests as a part of their experiential stay. The website is a good example of white space usage, which makes the whole experience easy on the eye of the visitor.
06. Little Palm Island
Simplicity is key when it comes to hotel web design. Overdoing colors and visual elements can confuse your visitors. So if you’re looking for inspiration for a simple yet effective web design, Little Palm Island’s website design could be the one.
The homepage begins with snippet videos of various island experiences. Then, when you scroll down, you can see more content on the products and services they offer with a simple CTA button on top that says “Book Now.”
07. Hotell Nordevik
With a cool color scheme, Hotell Nordevik’s website follows a simple layout. It features a photo gallery that showcases the property’s picturesque landscape and architecture. The best part about this website is that it has a location map on its home page, so visitors can quickly look up the exact location of the hotel hassle-free.
Location map on Hotell Nordevik’s website. Image Credits
08. Elivi
Elivi's website offers an interactive experience to its visitors, featuring numerous scrolling animations, images, and quirky designs. Here's what they did best:
- Hover animations.
- Unique designs with multiple images and videos.
- Balanced use of whitespace.
09. DDD Hotel
DDD Hotel's website design is truly an inspiring one. The design strikes a perfect balance on the color palette with contrasting light and dark colors. The imagery and typography add to the uniqueness of the website with cool hover animations. On clicking the CTA for the menu, you can see a centered navigation menu with subtle background animations.
10. Naumi Hotel
A treat for your eye, Naumi hotels’ website is a piece of art. Design composes vibrant images of the hotel and several signature services they offer. The visual elements have brought out the savvy design of the hotel rooms through the images and descriptions, a perfect way of communicating your USPs with prospective customers.
IV. Wrapping Up
Choosing the right website design for your hotel may sound overwhelming, with so many options available. However, the best way to go about it is to understand how you want your customers to see your brand.
Make sure you have good quality images of your hotel property, rooms, and restaurants so your customers can know beforehand what they can expect when they finally book their stay with you. If you do not have a website already, build your website on the right platform.
You can also have your seasonal promotions over your social media handles and direct your customers to a customized landing page on your website so they can get all the information they want without much back and forth. Finally, ensure your landing page is optimized, just like your entire website! Follow the points mentioned in this article to get yourself the best hotel website design possible. Whether it is cool and quirky or elegant and classic, a good hotel website design can always convey the message to its visitors in the right manner.