Stories

Hotel Website – how to secure more bookings

This article is written based on the interview with Elitza Stoilova, Umni CEO. You can watch the interview HERE.

Historically, the majority of the hotels worldwide rely on travel agencies to fill their rooms. However, in recent years, this has changed. With the mass digitalisation, the need to spend time and efforts in maintaining a website has aroused. This is the case for hotels as well as for almost every service in the touristic sector. 

A survey conducted in January 2022 by the platform Site Minder states that the hotels’ websites are in the 3 top sources of hotel reservations and revenue. Direct bookings are currently 1 of the 2 biggest drivers of revenue for more than half (12) of the global markets that are surveyed. The increase in investment in websites is undoubtedly on the rise. According to the survey, from Australia to Germany, France, Italy, South Africa to Spain, and the UK – the hotel site is the 2 nd most important source of reservations after Booking.com.

According to this year’s Contentsquare study, 2022 Digital Experience Benchmark, 42% of users leave hotel and tourism websites after seeing only 1 page. This means that a website that does not meet users’ criteria leads to a significant number of missed booking options. 

What should a hotel website look like in order to meet the users’ criteria and result in more bookings?

The website should answer questions, this means a well structured and updated FAQ section. Each page has to be exciting and to have at least one element that attracts the user’s attention.  

Visual content is often the go-to option. As a fact, user-friendly websites generate better and more sustainable traffic. The site is the heart of the company’s digital ecosystem, thus it needs to be useful and presentable, in order to instill trust and to bring good expectations that will lead to bookings and revenue. The must haves for a good hotel website are: 

  • Direct bookings
  • Service inquiries
  • 24/7 digital self-service support
  • Traffic available from anywhere
  • Collecting data

Knowing the customers and the guests is the key to making intelligent decisions. Therefore, data collection and analysis is a milestone in improving the service and meeting the expectations. The data that guests voluntarily give in exchange for services and gifts, as well as first and zero party data will keep you updated on how your clients’ behavior and needs change. 

There are a few ideas about how you can keep your hotel’s website up and running, and efficient, so the bookings and revenue stay on the rise:

  • Educational and attracting video content. 
  • Social media activity.
  • Collecting customer emails – this can be done by questionnaires, digital games, and other activities.
  • Loyalty program.
  • Tools for instant client support and communication – can be as easy as AI chatbot or Facebook Messenger. The AI chatbot is a tool that is crucial for customers’ overall satisfaction with the customer support. Research shows that clients tend to prefer the chat format. 
  • Newsletters.

The purpose of all the activities is to lead customers to the website, to engage them and to lead to more bookings. All social media activity, newsletters and video and visual content should lead to the website and engage interest. 

You can watch the interview on which this article is based HERE.

Recent posts