Checking in Hotel Web Design: 50 Cosy Hotel Websites and Trends
Hotels go to great lengths to provide the perfect ambiance and atmosphere for their customers. However, most hotels overlook the importance of having an accessible website that serves as an alternative gateway to draw customers’ interest in staying at their hotel.
Hotels mostly cater to an international crowd. Other than the frequent business executives who practically live in hotels most of the year, majority of their clientele have never stayed at their hotel before. The only thing these hotels can do to attract online customers to make a reservation with them is to ensure that they have offer an online booking experience that differs from the others in a positive way.
Image from: Ayla87
In this article, we take a look at some beautiful and innovative hotel websites that are currently floating in cyberspace in the hopes that other web designers can draw inspiration for their next hotel project.
What makes an Excellent Hotel Website?
There are many factors to consider when creating an excellent hotel website. It must not only have an attractive design, but must also maintain simplicity of navigation, provided succinct and relevant information and, above all else, easy functionality. All these work together to help create a pleasant experience for the user which may very well be the deciding factor customers consider when making a reservation.
Visual Attraction
A picture paints a thousand words. Photographs of the hotel grounds, rooms and even location maps will allow customers to get a better idea of what to expect of the hotel. For some customers, appearances are everything and a pretty picture of their vacation lodging can help nudge them into a decision.
Hotel Guarda Golf
Hotel Guarda Golf has a large gallery of photographs that allow customers to look at what they are paying for from various angles. This will help customers to get a sense of security when deciding if it is the right place to spend their money on.
Social, Social, Social
Not everyone you know gets to travel around the world, as such, the best way to get feedback regarding where to stay on your travels is through reviews from satisfied customers. Reviews are the modern day word of mouth recommendation that can be a big factor customers consider before making any hotel reservations. Social media and viral marketing have become so powerful that even the rich and famous rely on them to make a decision on where to stay away from home. Advancement in web technology allows hotel guests to give feedback after their stay with the hotel.
In fact today, guests can even subscribe to hotel RSS feeds or follow the hotel’s social networks like Twitter to stay updated with the hotel’s latest promotions and events.
MGM Grand
MGM Grand allows their visitors to obtain updates from popular social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Youtube.
Functionality
The website of a hotel needs to attract customers visually, but also ensure that it is not a hassle to get the basic information they seek while deciding which hotel to make a reservation with.
The loading time of each webpage should be fast if not customers might get frustrated. And appealing to more than one of our senses can help customers get a taste the quality of service the hotel offers. While customers scroll through pretty photographs of the rooms and hotel’s grounds and services, they can be treated to pleasant and soothing music as well.
Having an online booking system is important as it allows the busy user to quickly make the necessary reservations without the hassle of waiting for a phone operator to attend to them. A powerful booking system will help ensure that it can handle large numbers of booking traffic without any problems and allow the hotel to enter the next technological era smoothly.
Atlantis The Palm
Beautiful and large scrolling images that don’t require any reloading time allows the visitor to enjoy the visual treat on the website. Altantis also has a comprehensive online booking system that makes it very easy for visitors to use.
Multilingual Websites
Hotels hope to target the international market and although English is a widely spoken language, hotels should cater to the needs of customers whose first language isn’t English. If the same information given to English speaking customers is also provided in other languages like French, Japanese, and German etc without having to exit the website, it will greatly increase the chances of the customer choosing to make a reservation with the hotel.
Albert Hotel Riga
Albert Hotel Riga is one such example in which their website allows the customer to choose between languages like English, Russian and Latvian without having to exit the site.
Ease of Use
Clear and simple navigation should be one of the priorities when designing any hotel website. It is one of the push factors for visitors to make the decision to make a reservation with the hotel. Important information like location, contact details, and booking methods, should be easy to find and simple to use. This will ensure that the prospective customer does not get frustrated and leave the site without making a booking.
Grand Hotel Tremezzo
Easy to navigate, the Grand Hotel Tremezzo website allows the visitor to quickly obtain important information as they are listed neatly and prominently on the navigation bar.
Detailed Service
It is important for customers to know the various services the hotel can offer them during their stay. Knowing more about the hotel and their policies will help customers gain a sense of security and build confidence in the hotel they are considering to book with. Relevant details should be easily accessible and in given in a reasonable font size for customers to read with ease. Information given on the website should be valid and there should not be any misleading or hidden details kept from potential customers.
Capella Singapore
Capella Singapore is a six star hotel with numerous facilities like their spa options and four different dinning venues as well as activities like their signature tours and cruises. These are available for visitors to take a look at on their site, thus giving them an extra edge over other hotels.
Choice of Colors
Colour schemes used in hotel websites play an important role. Warm and sensual colours are often used as they create a homely and comfortable feeling for their web visitors. After all, a hotel stay is one’s home away from home. Hotel websites usually have a colour scheme of white, blue, black or green because of the symbolic connotations of these colours. White is associated with elegance and purity. Blue is calming and sensual. Black adds a sense of mystery and Zen-like feeling. Nature’s green helps the busy traveller unwind and refreshes their senses.
Hotel Missoni
Hotel Missoni website design stands out from the others because of its unique concept and excellent use of colours.
50 Beautifully Designed Hotel and Resort Websites
Shown below are some beautifully designed and current hotel and resort websites, feel free to browse through their websites if you have the time.
Checking In Soon?
I hope these hotel websites were able to whet your appetite for a much needed vacation for yourself or your family. And if you see any other great hotel websites or have something to share about their site designs, do drop us a comment below.
Great article! Although I will probably never design a website for a hotel, these are still some great tips to implement in other industries. Oh, and the examples are all really nice!
great
thank you
Really nice collection...amazing draw grid system in all hotels. that´s what im looking for... :D
I personally love this one: http://www.hubertnz.sk/
But I agree, great article :)
Nice collection, but...
"Multilingual Languages"? Oh, really?
I think it should be either multiple languages or multilingual sites... or multilingual itself :)
Hey adam, thanks for the feedback.
I like this one: http://www.felixzawojski.com/
Made in the most famous russian studio.
Nice collection.
Great article. I really like Cappela and Mansion ones. I made a simple but smart one for a local b&b: http://www.mineheadguesthouse.co.uk/
Well, your post is great! As the list of all the hotels and resorts is simply mind blowing. I absolutely liked all of the hotels websites and felt that they were successful enough to create an ambiance of their actual hotel environment. All the sites gave a feel of relaxation and luxury. Good collection!
Don't forget the "Faena", in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
http://www.faenahotelanduniverse.com
A lot of smaller hotels and resorts are starting to use Wordpress to build and regularly update their sites.
La Orquidea (the Orchid) in Spain http://www.laorquidea.co.uk is a good example of a clean design with a unique template.
I wonder if the author has seen the web-site for the first 5* hotel in Moldova, http://www.clubroyalpark.md :)
Too Many of these examples look like ready made template design.
You got the Sanderson in there, but check out the Sanderson's parent company, Morgan's Hotel Group: http://www.morganshotelgroup.com/
Great work thx mate
Thank you for the inspiration! At a former job I worked on 4 hotel redesigns.
One I had free reign on and it turned out great. Except now they use a photo of the hotel on the landing page that looks awful (hotel is framed by a black entrance with a big plaque from a historical landmark (not the hotel), black windows, and plastic chairs and tables from a snack bar in the hotel). It's literally why would I want to stay there?!
The other three...well one was a Template Monster template (and I'm quite sure the owners didn't know it and were charged premium for it), and the other I still want to barf when I think of it, including what they were charged. The fourth also wasn't what I would have done.
My former employer just did not, and still doesn't, understand that ambiance is so important in hotel/resort design.
What a great collection of inspiration, forgive me I couldn't help but to think that these tips aren't just for the hospitality industry alone. They could in fact be applied to any industry.
what a great collection of these examples.
--
Thanks and Regards
Noel for Nopun.com
Great examples! I'm working on a hotel project now and these are exactly what I'm looking for!!
Thanks guys for all the other recommendation of hotel sites. Keep them coming.
I wonder how may of those nice designs and sites are SEO friendly enough to beat the competence in Search Engines.
Hi Ani Lopez, in fact many of the hotel sites ranked poorly in major search engines and are hard to locate them.
Turn off your Flash plugin in I.E and have a look at peninsula.com again - this is how search engines see this Flash site - very SEO friendly! If a site is developed properly there is no reason why even full flash, content managed websites (peninsula.com runs on Sitecore) can't be SEO frinedly.
Rgds
Ed.
Hi Ed, why would anyone want to use I.E anyway?
Some really cool websites, it's funny, but if I'm unsure which hotel to book I always go with the one that has the better site!
In general, too many hotels and hotel chains put design before usability, when designing their websites.
KR
That's a great collection of sites you have. You might also want to look at these:
http://www.wolganvalley.com/
http://www.al-maha.com/
http://www.themirahotel.com/
Thanks Ed for the recommendation.
I luv wolganvalley man, natural color, simple and clean
nice site
Thanx Dude, this is awesome !
great article !!
nice collection
Great article, Lots of nice designs here. i Think it is important that a hotel website should be clear and welcoming.
Thanks for sharing.
You should also look at B&B web sites. Many of those are much better then the hotel sites you are showing.
Such an awesome collection. Thanks for the work you put into it!
Very nice website I love the look and feel of most of them but I agree with Ani Lopez what good is a beautiful site if no one can find you for the keywords your site is relevant for. Design with SEO in mind is the ultimate challenge most of us face and also understanding that there are two audiences humans and robots. Achieving a technologically sound design with SEO in mind is not only about keyword density its about cross browser compatibility and making sure your site validates across the CSS / XHTML standards in web 2.0. Google Webmaster Tools is also a must to take advantage of all the resources and site diagnostics.
While all these sites look pretty, I wonder how they stack up in terms of measurable ROI, leads generated, etc.
Pretty sites definitely look nice, but it's 2009! Everyone knows a lot of these hotels have seen their bookings get clobbered by the recession. If it don't make dollars, it don't make sense.
The Donald Trump Vegas one at least has some direct response elements....
Many of the hotels listed here have brand recognition and in all likelihood have large marketing budgets (web/print/TV).
For very high end accommodations the client isn't the person doing the booking. It's most likely a personal assistant, executive assistant or a travel agency that they work with.
Bookings and recommendations come from a variety of sources such as TripAdvisor.
Good post, thank you. Check out http://www.21cMuseumHotel.com, in Louisville, KY of all places.
Great article, inspiring! :)
I'd suggest also this wonderful 5 stars Hotel in the Amalfi Coast:
http://www.hotelpalumbo.it/
Great article - one of best I have seen is http://www.spaces42.com
All contemporary homes to rent and the images are great.
Dear Aidan, thank you very much for the mention of our website Hotel Guarda Golf & for the great article. Cheers, Daniele
Great article,
I suggest http://www.dulacetduparc.com/en/ a nice Resort on Lake Garda (Italy)
Thanks and Regards
Excellent selection guys. Definitely a lot of hoteliers could benefit from this sort of inspiration
An interesting article and some good looking websites. You have mentioned ease of use and navigation (usability) yet, most of these sites seem to be a pretty picture and little else.
Yes you need to impress your customers, but an Internet based customer will only wait 10 seconds or so for a website to download, they are impatient. Having massive pictures on the front page may not be the answer.
Also, you mentioned most hotels are catering for overseas customers. Even with broadband a connection over the Internet from overseas will not be as fast as a local connection. So the size of pictures should be addressed. Small and well placed pictures may be a better option.
What a nice website gallery!
I like also http://www.pupp.cz
Beautiful place, traditional hotel, excellent services ...
Great article, thank you for these inspiring websites.
I recently found this website of the hotel Hollmann Beletage in Vienna, Austria:
http://www.hollmann-beletage.at
I agree in this article. The way to make a customer decide which hotel to choose is the simplicity of Web Design. Easy to navigate and less hassle. When I looked at the collection, I love them all. They are all creative and artistic yet so simple.
Nice selection Aidan, definitely some good pages there. However, I also have to agree with some of the previous posts - a great looking website isn't always the one that is easiest to navigate, quickest to load or best at converting lookers into bookers. We specialise in hotel and travel websites, and while great design is important, we prioritise a number of other factors as well when building sites.
Another issue is the booking engine - you can build a great site only to have to bolt on a booking engine that looks terrible, or one that looks great but takes ages to load and confuses the hell out of the average visitor, preventing the site from getting the bookings it should.
Anyway, let me suggest a candidate for your hotel web design selection - they are not one of our clients, either! A small hotel in Romania, and a lesson on keeping things simple - an entire hotel website in what is basically 7 pages. Disastrous from an SEO perspective though.
http://www.hotel-oxford.ro
Thanks,
David
I came across an awesome looking website, too. I have also stayed at the hotel, so I know their potential as a strong hotel. The design is also good. I hope you like it
http://www.hotelrio.in
Nice websites! Very inspirational :)
I am really glad to have gone through the post, its amazing I was trying to see whether it will be of any use me and I am sure going to use for future reference.
I stayed in this Hotel in Killarney Ireland - http://www.MuckrossPark.com - and just liked the easy navigation of the site...plus some of their promotional images are excellent.
That's a great collection of sites you have. You might also want to look at http://www.murmuri.com - Hotel in Barcelona (Spain)
Wow, some awesome examples of really great hotel sites. Thanks!
Good stuff guys... check out http://www.citycenter.com also a great hotel site.
I spend about 250 days a year in hotels, it's not a misery I would wish on my worst enemy. With that being said I spend more time on Travel Websites than I would care to admit. First rule, if you have a flash website, I will be off that site faster than it can load. Nothing worse when I am trying to book a room, and the hotel company wants to show me a 3 minute flash video of their site.
Speaking of which Marriot just got an upgrade to their site which is much more user friendly . Lastly I would be remiss if I didnt mention my new favorite kid on the block. http://www.hoteltattler.com Enjoy!
Its really helpful and informative , Amazing work...
Way of explanation and pictures presentation is attractive.
Hello Aidan!
I m a freelance web developer and I am quite happy to found you like guy on the web. Right now I am designing a hotel website by reading your post as inspiration. it is coming at http://www.vijieya.com
I think this Hotel Rate indiciator is a great idea!
We have been slowly creating our own hotel review site for our local town to ensure everyone gets the best hotel to suit them.
Excellent read, I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing a little research on that. And he actually bought me lunch because I found it for him smile So let me rephrase that.
wow, that's really a nice collection! ...a lot of inspiration...
thanks for posting this article!