5 Key Element Of A Hotel Website Which Will Increase Hotel Bookings
If you search for hotel in any area of the UK on Google or Bing and chances are you
will find many unprofessional looking websites with poor design, badly taken photographs and poor color schemes. Here are five elements for a good hotel website.
1. A good design.
This goes without saying, the home page on a website is the shop window to your online business. A good design will catch and hold peoples attention and give them reason to navigate to other pages and content on the site. The design needs to be up-to-date with current trends including the use of a subtle and non-conflicting color scheme, well taken clear images and image placement and a clean standard font.
It has a clean and modern design, large well shot photographs and a simple menu. A recent survey found that 40 per cent of traffic researching hotel accommodation clicked away from a website due to its poor design and functionality.
2. Booking System.
All hotel websites need a booking system. 15 per cent of all bookings are made online and is the number 1 purchased service on the internet. There are a number of 3rd party systems such as eviivo that will integrate into most existing websites. Some are free of charge and other will take a commission on the booking.
3. Links to review sites.
87 per cent of users researching hotel accommodation will use Trip Advisor to read reviews on a hotel or restaurant. Links to these reviews should be posted or embedded into your website. This would seem quite daunting as there could be a negative review about your establishment.
Firstly use negative posts to improve your service, you may think that the rooms are a good temperature but if your guests think that its too hot them turn the heating down.
Secondly users dont trust reviews that are all positive, it looks fake. You can claim your listing on Trip Advisor, which is free and make sure that the information in correct. Also communicate with the user who leave positive and negative reviews.
4. Photographs and Virtual Tours.
A set of well shot images strategically placed or a gallery of photographs will help sell the hotel to visitors on the website. If a hotel is situated in an area with stunning views and beautiful scenery include images of the surrounding areas on the site. Virtual Tours will give the potential customer an immersive and interactive view of what the hotel has to offer. As part of a Social Media campaign you could allow customers to upload their own images to a page on Facebook.
5.Contact Details.
Seems a simple idea but there are many hotel websites that do not have the contact details in a prominent place. Make sure that they are easy to find, are correct and that there is always someone to answer the phone when it rings. Do not allow it to go through to an answer machine, that is a lost sale as chances are they will not try again.
Confirm any bookings made online by telephone or SMS and keep a data base of customers and people who have made enquiries for future marketing campaigns.