As hotels continue to grow and expand it’s common to see some of the more successful ones pause to refurbish and rebuild. This processes is very common for keeping your hotel up to date but it’s very commonly overlooked in the digital realm. As hotels upgrade building they should also be updating their websites.
Having read the news that the Grosvenor House Hotel, one of London’s finest luxury hotels, was taking on a £7 million refurbishment project, redesigning 42 of its premium Park Road Suites, which can fetch up to £1,300 per night, there was a feeling with me at least of excitement about what incredible feats interior designers could achieve with a seemingly infinite budget.
The statement released by the hotel said that
“refurbishment is part of the natural cycle of a hotel and we are continuing to evolve and remain relevant to the markets that we serve.”
Looking at the concepts the designs looked fabulous- professional, clean and sharp, everything you would expect from a premium hotel. Then I took a trip to the website… It was certainly eye opening to see the contrast between the room concepts and design of the website that the Marriot group had used. This poses the question is the refurbishment of a hotels rooms more important than the refurbishment of its online image?
Like hotel rooms, websites should continually
“evolve and remain relevant to the markets that it serves”
and yet in the case of the Grosvenor and the Marriot group its digital presence has seemingly been neglected. This is also true for the Savoy, another luxury hotel that went through a well publicised refurbishment four years ago and didn’t take the opportunity to blow digital audiences away with a stunning website. Surely if the physical appearance of a hotel changes its digital image should be adapted to match the new style.