You might want to change the world into a better place by being green, bring people from different cultures together or maybe you just want to spread some love. All of that is great, but in the end what you really need is people to stay with you and keep your hotel up and running. In order to do that, you need to convince them that staying with you will be the best choice they ever made. How do you do this? Well, for a start, by having a great website that makes people say: “Damn, that’s a place I’d like to spend some nights at!”
Make people’s research process an easy one
The first thing people will do when they are looking for a hotel is doing some research. Nowadays, the main part of this research takes place online. What you want to achieve with your website is to make this research process as simple and easy as possible. Research tells us that according to consumers the most important information on a hotel’s website are hotel location maps, hotel facilities, guest room facilities and photos of hotel features. Other important features are the ability to check room rates and availability and to book online. Make sure people can find that information easily, which means that they shouldn’t have to take more than three actions to get to the right page.
Bring up happy feelings
Even though we don’t like to admit this, our decisions are highly influenced by the way we feel about something. Even if hotel number one has every feature we are looking for and number two hasn’t, we might still choose number two because that one just feels better.
So rather than just showing your rooms and reception desk, you want the photos on your website to bring up happy feelings. Make sure there are people in your photos and that they are smiling, feeling relaxed and just seem to be having a good time. You’ll see that this has a massive impact on how people feel about your hotel.
Stand out from the crowd
Unfortunately the hotel industry is still a pretty old fashioned one. Hotel managers are often stuck in their old ways of working and stick to what they know has worked in the past. Luckily that means that hotel websites are often not very up to date, which is good news for you, since that means it will be easier for you to stand out from the crowd! If your website is beautiful, up to date and easy to use, that is a big plus for you and makes you stand miles ahead of your competition.