Visiting your hotel’s website has become an almost mandatory part of a traveler’s booking process. It can be the deciding factor.
Taking care of your website is crucial because it’s the first interaction between you and your potential customer. Of course, it’s important to have a fast, efficient, and intuitive website. But it’s just as important to take care of its appearance as well as its technical parameters.
A modern web design in line with current trends will help you convert travelers into customers and thus increase your volume of direct bookings. Here are seven design trends that will give your website a boost and make it more attractive to Internet users.
The challenges of designing your hotel website
The branding of your website is a key element that you have to consider if you want it to be effective in your marketing strategy. In fact, it is from this branding that your hotel’s visual identity will be shaped. That’s why it’s so important to choose your graphic charter, design, and logo carefully so that they reflect what you want to convey to travelers (atmosphere, values, etc.).
In the case of a hotel takeover, for instance, don’t hesitate to rework these visual elements by creating a new website, to make the establishment your own and give it a new identity in line with your objectives.
The same applies to the creation of a new hotel: a great amount of work on this part is crucial, as it’s an indispensable tool in the marketing of your services. As well as giving your hotel an identity, it will make it easily recognizable to customers and potential guests, and will therefore play a major role in your digital distribution.
Seven web design trends for your website
1. Think mobile first
Today, 70% of Internet users visit your hotel’s website on mobile devices. It goes without saying that it has become essential to have a mobile version of your hotel website that is as worked and polished as the desktop version. By implementing an adaptive design layout, you ensure smooth, pleasant navigation for travelers who land on your site no matter what device they’re using.
With this type of design, you can rethink your user experience and user interface to adapt them to the screen your visitors are using (mobile, tablet, computer, etc.).
This means you can manage the way each element appears and is arranged on the screen, depending on its size and format. You’ll deliver a better user experience because page content will be displayed in an optimized way whatever the platform.
Unlike the responsive web design, which has a single layout that adapts content automatically to the screen size of the browser without taking its display into consideration.
2. Focus on experience
At a time when technology and artificial intelligence are booming, putting the hotel experience and the user at the center of your hotel website’s communication is paramount.
Creating life-like scenes in your photos illustrating your offer can help travelers project themselves into your home, and give your hotel an authentic, real-life dimension.
You can also address visitors directly on your website to create a close relationship with them.
3. Bring your website to life
Engaging web users is an important factor in the decision-making process.
A more interactive design helps to arouse browsers’ curiosity, with a progressive “reveal” of the products or services on offer, for example. Adding these aesthetic touches is also a way of modernizing your website’s design.
This also involves the aesthetic choices you make when designing your hotel website. To move in this direction, bring modernity and engage web users, we recommend adding hover effects to your website. When the mouse hovers over a button (called a call-to-action), or an image.
The CTA is an essential element of a hotel website, as it’s what enables visitors to book, visit your room pages and discover your hotel. It’s a good idea to keep the “Book” button on every page of your website, to make it easier for visitors to book.
4. Help visitors picture their experience through videos
The video format is also gaining ground in the hotel industry. A short, captivating video can increase the amount of time a visitor spends on your website.
In the same way, as a selection of beautiful, high-quality photos, inserting short videos helps to create a storytelling around your establishment, and therefore encourages traveler engagement, making it easier for them to picture themselves into their stay. Adding a video of your hotel to the home page, for example, allows visitors to immerse themselves in the atmosphere and unique experience they’ll find during their stay at your hotel.
Another increasingly popular feature is aerial photos. Not only does this give your establishment a sense of grandeur, but it’s also a good way for travelers to visualize the setting in which the hotel is located. It’s nothing new, but high-quality photos are essential for your website: the same goes for aerial photos. Don’t be afraid to invest in high-quality content!
As it has been for years, photos remain a crucial element to highlight on your hotel website. To modernize this and breathe new life into your site, you can choose a photo carousel.
The photo carousel will add dynamism to your website and allow better navigation and access to your images by visitors. You’ll avoid an overloaded effect without sacrificing the visual aspect that illustrates your establishment. Just make sure that the image size and shape are optimal for the space your photos will occupy.
5. Create an inclusive website
Another trend that has become increasingly important in recent years is having an inclusive site, which helps you retain more potential customers. Indeed, by making it more accessible to all, the audience you reach will be much wider. According to the WHO, 16% of the population has a disability: that’s just as many potential customers who could represent a missed opportunity!
Adding alternative text to all your images or using high-contrast graphics in your website’s charter will benefit people who are color-blind or have poor eyesight. At the same time, you’ll be able to take advantage of the opportunity to improve the SEO (Search engine Optimization) of your website. It’s also one of the simplest elements to implement to make your website more inclusive. A legible typography with an adapted size is also a point that could benefit travelers with dyslexia, for example.
If your hotel website includes videos, it’s a good idea to include a transcript. In general, transcribing all the media files on your site can only make it more accessible. This way, users who can’t hear the video can still learn about its content. If you do it in several languages, you can reach an even wider audience, especially in the hospitality sector.
6. Having clean and impactful designs
In the hotel industry, it’s good taste to keep web design simple and uncluttered. With a consistent font and fluid, intuitive navigation, you’ll naturally guide travelers to call-to-actions (CTAs), especially the “book now” button on your website, which will stand out more.
Use space intelligently to make reading fluid and pleasant, avoiding visual overload. Following these recommendations will result in a more sophisticated, polished look, with a calm atmosphere emanating from it in response to the noisy world that travelers try to escape from during their vacation.
To sum up, both textual and visual content are important. It’s advisable to avoid overloading your website with widgets, pop-ups, and other elements that will pollute navigation by creating “visual noise”. The trend is “less is more”, with minimalist, elegant hotel websites that focus on the user experience. The aim is to facilitate the traveler’s decision to book on your official website.
7. Designing “room” pages
“Room” pages are where web users spend the most time. Creating a visually appealing experience while providing as much relevant information as possible is therefore essential, as it can have a decisive impact on a potential customer’s final decision to book with you directly.
There are several ways to make them stand out in the eyes of travelers: make a listing showing every room in a suite, and dedicate a complete page to each, like for the Five Seas Hotel in Cannes, for example.
In addition, to make sure you have a complete description of your rooms, you can, for example, detail their surface area, the equipment available, the number of beds, the presence or absence of a bathroom, heating, wifi, and any other relevant element concerning your offer. Don’t hesitate to use pictograms to illustrate this information: visual and quickly understandable, they will enhance the user experience.
Conclusion
These are the seven design trends that are gaining momentum this year. Of course, it’s up to you to adapt your website to suit your branding and the image you want to project. The choice of colors, photos, structure, and so on. It’s all up to you to adapt your website to your digital hotel marketing objectives.
