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 credit: 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.
yes, this is cool, cybersage. It is SO refreshing to see some creativity (too bad most clients are afraid of creativity)
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!
yeah, that's really cool inspiration! thanks for this collection!
my Favourit is "banyan tree". Greetings, jakob
Stunning collection of sites. Trully inspirational.
http://www.melia-hotels.com/
Usability is equally as important as the looks of a hotel website. A stunned visitor will want to do what he came for and quickly otherwise, the other websites are only a click away
Some great websites here! This one will be nice when its finished: http://www.oldpostofficeguesthouse.co.uk/
I've been trying a way to figure out how to implement a good design and site for my motels, I found this article through google. good tips !
Check this website out. Great post by the way
Gr8 article thnx man...
Great list, designing a hotel website & this will help for sure
Yeah, I must agree that great lists of hotel websites are featured here... Cool stuffs!
Thank you for the blog post!
i suggest the new Grand Hotel Gardone Riviera in Italy - Garda Lake
http://www.grandhotelgardone.it
wow my mouth drops to see so many nice hotel websites...really great photos, might need to be inspired by this hotel sites. hopefully i can find a good Marmaris hotels websites.
This is a wonderful blog post. really cool to see how they all have that complete unique template. Luxury hotels really make a nice impression.
This is such a great article to read. I'm working on a growing hotel website as well, and this helps me compare the best with our website. I'm very impressed and will definitely bookmark this post for reference and inspiration!
Wow, very nice collection of hotel sites. All of them are top notch designs, and great sources when traveling too! Thanks a lot for posting this.
Thanks for writing this article.
I myself am working on a pitch for a new website of an established Hotel that is also a landmark. I am fairly new to the world of 'Hotel websites' and it is clear to me that new, non-standard rules apply. Right now I am still in the research fase. After the weekend I will start working out the details of the pitch.
There are a few crucial tips in this article that I quite possibly could have overlooked, had I not found this article. It just takes a few words from people with experience and all of a sudden certain design/usability rules become common sense.
Hopefully we will win the pitch and I can start the conceptual and creative proces. Designing a Hotel website seems like an awesome challenge which I really want to take on. Once I start working on the website I will start sharing my ideas and tips with the community.
i always get my hotel reservations in advance specially during peak seasons,'-
Even though I'm not making a website for a specific hotel, I'm making one for a travel agency that concentrates on hotels, so this was extremely helpful. Thanks so much for posting it, I'm sure it's helps all of us in the travel niche.
This is a great website to reference for hotel managers to visit. I would like to understand how the hotel are able to get so many links to their site so a marketing guide would be nice too. There are some spectacular design that have been made though. Great blog post.
fantastic selection! there is No doubt ,, those are very beautiful and inspiring web designs! once again just added to google bookmarks! thanks for sharing this!
Such an awesome collection. Thanks for the work you put into it!
i always make sure that i got a hotel reservation at least 1 week in advance to ensure that i got a reservation ~~,
Excellent article, we are working on a project aimed at this level of service and quality "The Singular Hotels" will open its first hotel in Patagonia, Chile.
Can visit you in http://www.thesingular.com
Excelente artículo, nosotros estamos trabajando en un proyecto que apunta a este nivel de servicio y calidad The Singular Hotels que abrirá su primer hotel en la Patagonia de Chile.
Great read, I just emailed this post to my brother who asked me about this topic last week.
This is an awesome blog post . You really found some nice websites and these are some of the most popular hotels in the world. Keep up the good work. Great post!
A package of great hotels, its like all in one. Mountains, Islands, and city hotels are great places to be. I'd like to post this in my social networks.
Very impressive designs and really great for inspiration. I'm bookmarking these for travel web design inspiration ;) Thank you!
Here is a neat hotel idea, a litte micro niche motel site. Drupal based from what I can tell. http://www.hotelsinithacany.com
what a great post, some great websites listed there, personally i would recommend http://paraiso-jardim.com
The most cool one would be its reputation. If a certain hotel is really well known the people would love to see its website even if the site isn't really cool. But I guess the right one would be an accommodating site where the guests could browse easily on its page plus its links.
Great tips and collection of sites but, "pleasant and soothing music", Really? Music is the most annoying thing you can find on a website.
Good list, please check this hotel website in Holbox, México http://lasnubesdeholbox.com
Sorry Sandra, but an all Flash website isn't a good idea. The English version has the content in Spanish. The client, in my opinion, wasted their money.
When you have multiple language versions of the site make sure all of the content is in that language.
Nice list, Love most of them...
It's really very useful post.keep update.
thanks for giving such a nice post
The Lodge at Torrey Pines site is cutting edge
Wow! I love your designs... Makes me want to dream of getting in to those places and having a good rest...
Nice and prity
Hi,
i suggest the New Luxury Hotel Lido Palace in Riva del Garda
http://www.lido-palace.it
Wow! Some gorgeous looking websites there. Makes me want to pack my clothes and head off straight away to all those destinations! Very inspirational and I always love looking at great design.
The above themes are very useful to the applying the sites are most popular to the when you have multiple language versions.
Very Greate post by author on Hotels web design
I tend to do a lot of websites for hotels/tourism definitely the two most important things that I found hotels want is ease of use and prominent pictures of accommodation/views
Very inspirational and I always love looking at great design and two most important things that I found hotels want is ease of use
thanks,
nice selection I like this one http://www.hotelparadisparis.com
@Sophie - An under construction site? Seriously.
@Christina - LOL...its brilliant in its simplicity!
Wow, they are cool examples. Thanks.
Websites have certainly come a long way in the 10 years i have been doing online businesses.
I come to know there are some hotel templates are copyrighted. Will i face legal facts if i edit & use them ?
@zakthi - Are you referring to a template that you can purchase or just take/steal the design of an existing website? If you buy the template there should be no problem. However, if you take the design/code of another website, and even if you edit it you are violating their copyright. You would likely face legal action and not to mention the harm it could do to your reputation.
Not to mention having a very irate client on your hands. As they will likely receive notice of legal action.
Great reference for cool designs
yeah, that's really cool inspiration! thanks for this collection!
my Favourit is "banyan tree". Greetings, jakob
There are some very good looking sites here. Nice to see web design for hotels has moved into the 21st century at last. I do note though that all of the hotels here do seem to be large and thus will have large budgets as well. When you are a smaller hotel you wont have the money available to do all this.
Only word of advice to smaller hotels is DONT do it yourself. Get a pro in. If you could see how many bookings the good looking sites produce vs how many are produced when "my kids do the site", you would make the small investment required.
Some interesting comments. In terms of not having the money available, it is worth estimating how much revenue your website might bring in; what percentage of bookings might come through your online channel, and from that, figure out how much you are willing to invest in order to generate, and hopefully increase that revenue stream.
Nice websites for inspiration, thanks! : )
I saw and tried a hotel website builder, I liked that too with hotel design templates that fit almost all the hotel's needs. I think their sites structure is the best in my opinion, pretty professional and in one glance your customers get to know what you're offering, I think they get a feel of your hotel, motel or b&b etc. The thing I like about that builder (http://www.roomjack.com) is that their control panel / website builder I found super easy, much modern as well. They have a free trial too for someone interested to check it out. I was inspired by their capabilities. Thought of sharing it in case someone might be looking to revamp or get a new hotel website for theirs.
Anyways, thanks for sharing the inspirations.
Those hotel designs are great! Thanks for those tips. I might as well follow some of those designs for my hotel sit, i mean i'll get some ideas. Thanks for posting this.
All these designs are just spellbound superb colors combinations and fantastic views.. Liked the tips navigational structure
Very nice previews. I highly recommend that hotels weight their website carefully, it is becoming the primary business tool. Out of the various features for a hotel website I like the functionality, I find hard to believe but even on expensively designed websites sometimes it is a struggle to find the hotel address, back to basics, some info needs to be in the front page!
Really great designs, I liked them all.. thanks....
Nice Article!!
See also http://www.saintjohn.gr/ This one is in Mykonos Greece
We run a small B&B in Patagonia and are for sure no competitors for the listen companies. I build, modify and update our site on my own, web design ha been my passion but never more than a hobby. Obviously the creators of the above are far more qualified than I am. What strikes me though going through all these example is the following:
a) that most of these designs are purely picture-approached and over-evaluate the force of an image-based design. Not all in the target group are art lovers and I don't need to have pictures repeated over and over again. The main point is how to group the pictures and to think carefully about what senses/wishes/usp's to attract. I would fairly say that at least 75% of the examples given would fail my humble jugdement.
b) it is surprising that obviously a given picture-link to a facebook page, a youtube channel and a twitter account still make a good "viral" impression. I think they don't. When I look at a lot of these hotels profiles I see that I am kind of right - no real involvement, more or less a blank repeating of helplessly targeted offers by a coffee-fed marketing crowd :-). I got the impression that a lot of these agencies creating these site don not really have a profound insight into what's really possible in combining a facebook account with a website. this goes as well for other social networks and channels on the internet. also the placing of these links still seem to follow the rule, the smaller the better and let's best put them to the footer. that's a bad strategy and using analytics for years now I can tell that for any business clicks under the crucial 40% top of a website get (all 60 bottom %) no more than maybe 20% (and if so assume yourself a lucky guy!).
c) the pricing models online still follow the good old printing times scheme as well as the booking systems and formulars. there's so much more possible...especially there would be in case of the listed companies. i see more potential lost here than value gained.
I didn't intend to be harsh just critique. Hotel website and hotel web marketing - to be more concise - is just still a field which needs more innovation. also crucial migt be not to only rely on a good designer but to have someone handy who broadly deals with the internet, viral marketing, new media techniques and stuff. Looking at the majority of the examples here I doubt that this happens most of the time.
Saludos!
Nice job
thanks so m much