The Business Case for a Dynamic Hotel Website
In luxury hospitality marketing, a well-crafted and branded hotel website is essential to your online presence. It introduces potential guests to your brand, and is the perfect place to highlight the unique experiences you offer. From a sales perspective, a dynamic and visually appealing website acts as a crucial step in your sales funnel, and is the place where you convert interest into bookings. A compelling website can significantly enhance sales by providing a seamless, informative, and enjoyable user experience that reflects the luxury and quality of the services you offer.
However, building and maintaining a website that answers guests' expectations can be time consuming for in-house teams. According to an in-depth market analysis by Webflow2, 93% of marketing teams feel the need to continually innovate to remain competitive. A similar number of marketing teams feel that they should enhance their hotel websites, with over 50% believing that their current website doesn't properly embody their brand's identity2.
This Insight is here to help, as we'll dive into the most recent web-design trends, we'll discuss the impact of AI on website personalisation, and we'll look forward to what the future holds for hotel websites as important touchpoint for both the pre- and post-booking phases.
Current Hotel Website Design Trends
First, let's look at impactful web-design trends impacting our industry today. Based on insights from an in-depth study conducted by Webflow, there are four major design trends that luxury hospitality brands should take into account when designing their hotel websites:
1. Minimalism and Clean Layouts: the Webflow report2 emphasizes the importance of a clear structure in presenting information to guests. More than ever is the attention span on the internet diminishing, and more than ever do visitors feel the need to have immediate access to relevant information3. Hotel websites should therefore provide an intuitive experience, free from cluttering content and information. This is particularly relevant in the luxury hospitality segment. In your website design, emphasize ease of navigation and clarity as this helps highlight the luxury properties' features without overwhelming the visitor, strengthening the intuitive funnel towards booking. An example of a clear, elegant yet straight-to-the-point website is the website of our client Experimental.
2. Personalisation & AI Integration: the Webflow report2 emphasises the importance of website personalisation. Showing visitors an experience tailored to their expectations benefits conversion rates3. AI can be used to personalise content based on a wide variety of parameters such as location, gender, segment, and device, enhancing the user experience and the feeling of a true connection they sense towards your brand. Examples are still scarce, as this technology is being developed.
3. Mobile Optimisation: the Webflow report2 also discusses the importance of interactive experiences offered to hotel website visitors. This has been a trend for a while, however data shows that many marketing teams still build desktop-first websites with minor eye for detail when it comes to dynamic adaptation to mobile screens. With almost 80% of website traffic being mobile1, a responsive design is an absolute must, as poor mobile experiences can gravely affect conversion rates. A great example of mobile-first is the hotel website of our client, The Muse Dubai.
4. Rich Visual Content: the Webflow report2 discusses the impact high-quality visual content has on the user experiences and website conversions. Modern web tools are getting better and better at handling high-quality content while maintaining fast loading speeds matching the luxury and exclusivity of your brand3. In your hotel website design, implement high-quality images and videos that showcase the property and experiences offer a virtual environment, optimised for loading speeds on various platforms. An example of a fast-loading hotel website with ultra-high quality images is the website of our client Stereo Covent Garden:
Hotel Website Engagement and Conversion
Leveraging the above mentioned trends could transform your website from a source of information to a powerful engagement tool. Real-time data analytics enable you to offer content on your hotel website that is highly relevant to the changing guest needs. This not only improves the user experience by making interactions feel relevant and uniquely tailored, but is proven to enhance the likelihood of converting site visits into bookings3. By actively working to engage visitors with personalised content, hospitality brands see a measurable increase in both guest satisfaction and sales. AI could assist with this process, saving sales and marketing teams time in the development process, and shifting focus to analysing sentiment rather than spending valuable time on development itself.
Zooming in: Personalisation & AI for Hotel Websites
With the development of advanced analytics and AI, hospitality brands can now offer highly personalized web experiences that adapt to the visitor's preferences, unique behaviours and browsing behavior automatically. Especially in the luxury segment, where developing a personal connection with guests is one of the main selling points, being able to adapt your website to their unique preferences could result in higher conversion rates2. For instance, AI could boost relevance, responsiveness and conversion rates by showing specific USPs matching unique guests' needs first, it could suggest personalised package deals, upsells, room upgrades, or special services based on past interactions and behaviours.
Technology that makes this possible is still in its development stage, and is not yet widely available. At Influence Society we work with Webflow, and there's many reasons why we've used this platform to develop well over 300 fully custom hotel websites for clients. Recently, another major reason got added to our list: Webflow acquired a company that develops AI technology making it possible to personalise pages on your hotel website automatically. Very soon we'll see full integration into Webflow, which further solidifies our choice to use this platform, as it will enable us to take clients' websites to an even higher level.
Future Outlook on Hotel Website Development
At Influence Society, we strongly believe that to maintain a leading edge, marketing and sales managers should invest in building a strong hotel web presence, and in technologies that offer real-time analytics and dynamic content adaptation capabilities. Looking ahead, luxury hospitality brands should prioritise the use of AI and personalisation to gain a competitive edge.
Sources Mentioned
- Semrush. (2024). Mobile vs Desktop Use and Trends in 2024. Semrush Blog. https://www.semrush.com/blog/mobile-vs-desktop-usage/
- Webflow. (2024a). The 2024 State of the Website report. https://webflow.com/resources/reports/2024-state-of-the-website
- Webflow. (2024b). The marketer’s website | A free Webflow ebook. https://webflow.com/resources/ebooks/the-marketers-website