First impressions count - and so does easy navigation!

Many hoteliers assume that the classic landing page or “home page” of their property (i.e., the initial content that appears when a user navigates to the website) is a perfunctory throwaway; just a place to post a few photos and a short introduction to the hotel. In reality, this may be the first time a guest interacts with you - and first impressions count! So don’t think of your property’s home page as the cover of a book. Current trends indicate that users expect it to be more like a table of contents. You want guests to easily and seamlessly find links to the content they need — whether that’s room types, amenities, an image gallery or a booking link.

Use Maps to Establish Your Hotel as a Local Travel Guide

While utilizing maps in your website design is not a new trend, it is emerging as an even more vital component of trip planning – especially for brands and management groups with multiple properties in multiple destinations. Even if you are running a full-service resort with multiple pools, spa, golf, and daily activities, guests do not usually plan on spending all of their time on-property – and need a helpful guide to the local area.  

Maps can center your property as the local authority on the best activities, dining, nightlife, and attractions in the area. These maps should include filters that allow people to search for specific points of interest, such as historic landmarks, restaurants, beaches, golf, and transportation centers like airports, train stations, and public transportation stops. This allows guests to visualize and plan their entire vacation around your location, leading to that ever-important purchasing decision.

An engine for revenue

Speaking of the booking link, it should be prominent. It’s important to remember that a hospitality website serves as your hotel’s core revenue generation engine. An optimized online presence is a powerful storefront, and can convert your hotel website into your most important sales channel. Since many guests are hoping to make a quick decision about where to stay, they may want to skip ahead to the end of their experience not long after starting it. Having a “Book Now” or “Check Availability” link pinned to the top edge of the browser serves as a convenient call to action — and of course, that’s the action you want them to take.

(Worth noting: some hotels have found it beneficial to engage in A/B testing of open booking consoles vs. closed variants. The results can depend heavily on the type of property you’re working with, but running this sort of experiment can prove which style your guests tend to prefer.) 

Incorporate your hotel’s USPs

Let’s face it: if your hotel is located in a destination people want to travel to, chances are you’re in constant competition for bookings. This means your hotel website needs to distinguish your property from others in the area by offering something unique. Reason being, while it’s tempting to assume a guest will always opt for the lowest price, that doesn’t necessarily wind up being the case. Because of this, your property’s online presence also needs to prominently offer what’s often referred to as a “unique selling proposition”, (or USP). In essence, that means letting your prospective guests know what sets your property apart; giving them an indication of what they can look forward to when they arrive. 

This can take several forms, including: 

• Location: Is your hotel in close proximity to local points of interest? If guests can easily get to the spots that initially attracted them to your city (e.g., convention centers, beaches, local attractions, etc.), then that becomes a major selling point.
• Amenities: What value-adds does your property offer? On-site dining, recreation, shuttle service, pet-friendliness, on-site pools or fitness centers — guests looking for more than a standard stay will appreciate information on the extras upfront. 
• Intriguing features: Many hotels are leaning into perks and quirks; things like “lending libraries” filled with fun travel gear, sharing stations with regional food and drink specialties, themed rooms, or unique décor that reflects local art and culture. 
• Historic interest: Does your property have an interesting past? Maybe it’s a converted industrial building, former artists’ enclave, or once hosted a prominent historical event. Tell your unique story - guests enjoy the chance to feel like a part of something bigger.  
• Guest comforts: Still other visitors are looking for the plushest experience possible. If your hotel is a prestige property, don’t be afraid to lean into the luxury. Guests who are more concerned with comfort and service than costs will appreciate this approach.

Regardless of what makes your hotel distinct from others, it’s a certainty that whatever it is will appeal to the guests you most want to attract. 

Build trust with your brand

Since your website is most likely the first and most frequent avenue through which prospective guests will interact with your property (at least, until check-in), it’s crucial to foster peace of mind ahead of time. If guests don’t feel secure or appreciated, they’ll look elsewhere. Your hotel can take several steps to help build this trust. 

Does your property offer secure parking, or key-restricted lobby access? That’s worth mentioning for the security conscious. Do you offer flexible rescheduling or cancellations? It’s important to highlight this feature so guests can book with confidence. Even employing soft language in the copy and calming color theory in the brand palette can help guests to feel good about selecting your hotel. 

Remember: despite any available extras, the primary products any hotel offers are comfort, rest and safety. So, the more guests understand that your hotel is their best choice when it comes to satisfying these conditions, the more likely they are to book.

Prioritizing personalization

Another way to build trust is via personalization — which is shaping up to be one of the most prominent emerging trends for the future of hospitality. Guests always feel valued when they understand they’re more than just a booking. Permitting guests the ability to customize certain aspects of their stay affords a level of warmth that will be remembered.  Many properties are now building in portals that allow guests to “tweak” aspects of their stay to their liking either during or after the reservation that go beyond just extra pillows or turn-down service. By offering features like custom toiletry menus, preferred types of snacks or beverages in the minibar, baby or child extras (e.g. cribs, changing tables or activity books), or even tickets to local attractions offered as part of a premium package, your hotel can extend a level of welcome any guest will appreciate.

Create Curated Packages for Different Audiences

The power of personalization is a major driver in vacation planning, with many travelers looking for experiences that are tailored to their interests. When hotels can provide these experiences through curated packages and offers, they can save guests a lot of time planning out their trip – leading to increased revenue and happier guests. 

Curated packages can be anything from stay-only offers to accommodations bundled with activities and amenities. With personalization, hotels can appeal to specific demographics (golfers, spa mavens, adventure seekers, etc.) as well as target previous guests with unique package options dynamically (based on their collected preferences in your CRM).  

For example: John is a golfer who likes to visit your resort for a golf weekend every spring, so your hotel can send John an offer for a Spring Golf/Stay package as part of your spring marketing campaigns. 

Drive Repeat Bookings with a Thoughtful Loyalty Program

In 2024, loyalty programs are no longer a nice-to-have, but a need-to-have. The immediate value of establishing a loyalty program is the ability to leverage guest data to better communicate with those guests and enhance the overall guest experience. The long-term value is utilizing those guest preferences to build brand loyalty over time through repeat bookings and ancillary spend. Customers are expecting to see opportunities to join a loyalty program for timely offers and exclusive discounts - even for independent hotels. Everyone is looking for a great deal, and loyalty programs put the control back into the consumers’ hands while simultaneously adding to revenue profitability. 

That said, creating a generic hotel loyalty program is not the solution. To generate repeat bookings and program engagement, you need to fully understand the wants and needs of your guests and create an attainable rewards structure that supports those desires. 

Bring Your Content to Life with Animation

Just like in the movies, animation can captivate guest interest and create a more engaging user experience on your website. Popular simple animations, like GIFs, can add some fun visual interest to a web page, whether it’s showing a bartender making a cocktail at your restaurant or a line illustration pointing guests towards important links like special offers or booking their stay.  

While animation can bring a sense of surprise and delight, it’s also important to use a thoughtful approach. Overusing animation can be distracting for website visitors and potentially slow the load times of your website, leading to higher bounce rates. Use an editor’s eye to confirm that the animation is supporting your content, and not taking away from the user experience. It’s also important to work with a professional developer to ensure any animations are coded correctly to ensure proper functionality and updated as needed over time to maintain the usability of your website.

Engage at the point of inspiration

Overall, providing the information your guests are looking for is all in service of the bigger goal - to earn their business. So, offering guests simple and direct ways to view the spaces you have available and make booking decisions is absolutely key. 

There are several ways to do this that align both with what guests have come to expect, and with emerging design/navigation trends. Among them: 

• Option comparison: Clearly highlighting differences in aspects like square footage, number and type of beds, views, and in-room features, guests can choose what’s most important to them. A simple icon set can offer this info at a glance.
• Clear pricing: Although cost often isn’t the first concern guests have, it typically factors in - so transparent pricing is helpful. It’s also beneficial to include any applicable fees or taxes. No one likes surprise hidden charges at the last moment.
• Clean imagery: Being able to get a sneak peek of a given space both adds value and builds anticipation. Employing clear and current optimized imagery of available rooms is something guests will appreciate when it comes to planning. If your property has the budget and digital bandwidth, video snippets are also increasingly being built into many websites to offer guests sweeping “virtual tours” of your hotel’s high points — further inspiring engagement. 
• Sharing options: This is an aspect of the booking process that’s often overlooked but shouldn’t be. Offering guests a way to resume a search that was started in one place but may pick up in another is an appreciated convenience. Guests may also be looking to share their search with friends, co-workers or family. With this in mind, making sharing an easy feature is a highly recommended practice. 
• Finding favorites: Additionally, permitting guests to click an icon that designates a “favorites” functionality (which allows their preferred accommodations and/or features to be easily earmarked for future reference) means they’ll be able to easily pick up where they left off any time prior to making a final booking decision. 

Simplify & summarize

Booking a stay at your hotel should be a direct and simple prospect for guests. Still, since making a selection is often a multi-step process, it’s important to offer a summary of the guest’s experience prior to asking them to confirm the booking. That way, if they made any mistakes during the selection process, they have an opportunity to correct them before locking in their choices. This not only works toward further trust-building, but also saves potential hassles on the hotel end that could arise from guests needing to make changes after the fact. 

That means concisely reiterating information like:

• The dates of the stay
• Type and size of room booked
• Payment method used
• Total of charges, and when they’ll occur (e.g., immediately, or at check-in)
• Reference number 

As an added bonus, this “follow-up” step of the booking funnel is also a good opportunity to upsell other onsite services; e.g. value-adds like early check-in / late check-out, parking passes, amenity packages, or other special ancillary offers.

Overall, it’s important to think like a guest for the purposes of this part of the process. Offering a rundown of their choices and what they’re about to agree to prior to closing the transaction helps avoid issues and confusion later.

This article was created collaboratively by Cendyn and HotelTechReport.