How to redesign a hotel website

In a few short steps, we talk you though the process we went through in establishing a consistent customer experience across all points of contact with a hotel's brand. For this hotel, this meant starting again with their visual identity, a ground up redesign of their website, and the introduction of a bespoke online booking and room management system.

Listening

This hotel initially approached us to look at modernising the look of their website. We understood the design of their website was important, but wanted to know much more. We listened to how they ran their business, how their customers interacted with the hotel, and where they got the majority of their current room bookings from. It didn’t take us long to realise that what was actually required was not just website design, but implementing start-to-finish consistency across their communication with clients.

Being aware of the competition

Once we established what the in-house picture was, we took a look at what the competition was up to online, so we could ensure we would do better. We also looked at what was out there in terms of commercial 3^rd party online booking systems and property management systems (PMS).

We didn’t think a dust-off of the previous website was going to have any benefit to the company long term. We had two clear objectives; we wanted visitors to the hotel’s website to get the very best impression, not just of the hotel, but also of the local area. We wanted to ensure customers could easily book (and pay for) rooms with confidence and that this happened under hotel’s the own domain name and brand. That pointed to a bespoke bookings and room management system.

Plan, plan, then plan some more

The project planning was taking shape and looking exciting – we knew we wanted to make the hotel website ‘best-of-class’ in the area. This meant a new visual identity for the hotel, a photoshoot of the interior and the wider local area, plus the all important, custom-written online booking system. We also redesigned all the hotels print-based materials to coincide with the new website launch.

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A new brand

To the hotel owner’s credit, they were happy to let us suggest an appropriate style for the hotel that would showcase their modern interiors and appeal to their young to middle-aged customer base. Respecting the traditional values of hotels in the area, we intially offered a cross-section of logotype ideas.

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A picture is worth a thousand words…

We wanted the website and hotel to stand out. What so many of the other local hotel websites had under-valued, was the potential for photography to tell the story.

We knew we wanted to showcase the hotels recently renovated rooms and fresh locally-sourced food through photography, but we also wanted them to consider commissioning us to do a photoshoot of the local and area tourist attractions. Again, to their credit, they saw the benefit of a high-standard of photography to their website audience. This gave us a great image base to carry through the design.

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Website design

From the research we had carried out, we approached the website design for the hotel with some specific ideas in mind.

The website needed to:

Be accessible; W3C standards compliant and work across modern browsers and devices.
Showcase the hotel and area though photography
Stand out in the competition
Have a modern and professional brand, but maintain the hospitable family feel of the hotel
Make room availability checking and online booking as easily as possible
Instil user confidence; maximising booking directly on the website

We think the website meets all of the above. The website design is a real exercise in attention to detail.

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Website development

The online booking system, room availability checker and back-end booking management application were produced to a specification we agreed with the hotel owners. Key to the booking application’s design is that it’s as simple for the hotel owners to use as it is for the hotel customers.

The bespoke online hotel booking management system includes: