Hotels Special Edition - Designed to meet all requests

Hotel companies are wising up to the web, but at what cost? Linda Fox looks at the importance of getting the design right in order to meet customers’ expectations

Hotel companies are fighting back. No longer content to let intermediaries take their business they have woken up and are taking the web seriously.

With the public increasingly looking to book direct there’s probably no better time to embrace change – but consumers’ expectations are already high, fuelled by the fast-paced developments of the newer entrants.

Hotels have some catching up to do and websites have to be carefully thought out before inception, with both design and marketing top of the agenda.

Peter Matthews, of website design specialist Nucleus, says: “Expectations are different depending on the type of hotel you are looking for, but the percentage of bookings that are coming via the web and the percentage of travellers whose first point of call is the web is massive.”

If that’s not compelling enough, Nucleus can produce return-on-investment figures demonstrating a website, after redesign, increasing from 4% of total revenues to 42% over a two-year period.

Just to get to that point hotel websites must contain some key ingredients that will attract people to the site, take them through the research and decision-making process, and on to finalising the online booking.

Opinions of the vital elements a website should include vary depending on what its primary use is – online brochure, brand extension, booking channel, driver of calls to a reservation centre, or a combination of all of the above. Most experts are united on the booking element of the website, its simplicity and the reassurance it must provide.

“It’s important to make it as easy as possible and encourage people to impulse buy. At the point where you are asking them to make the step to spending, you need to provide reassurance and remind them of what they are booking. That’s where a lot of hotels give up. They buy a booking engine and expect it to be just functional, but for the consumer it’s emotional as well,” says Matthews.

He maintains there is often more effort put into design at the lower end of the market than at the upper end, where many companies fail to recognise their customers are spending more.

UK budget hotel chain Travelodge is a good example. The 300-strong group says online bookings account for more than 80% of business, compared to 40% just 18 months ago. The turning point was the introduction of its online pricing structure bringing the low-cost airline model to the hotel industry.

A spokesperson says: “We wanted the site to be the preferred booking method. It’s the strategy of pricing that has helped boost bookings over the web. It’s very simple, very clear and easy to navigate.”

The company also tries to ensure the website is stocked with as much information as possible to encourage people to use the site and discourage them from picking up the phone, or worse, going somewhere else.

Another key element for a well-designed website is images that give an impression of what the property is like and inject some atmosphere.

Netizen Digital director of web development Jaco Labuschagne believes hotel companies are losing business by not having good imagery.

“If you’re searching for a hotel you want to see it, so the more you can show the better.”

Conchango head of interactive media, Paul Dawson, agrees: “Customers want to see lots and lots of realistic pictures from all angles. This is to get a feel not only for what it looks like but also what it is actually like.”

Dawson also believes that just as a booking engine and images are a website ‘must’ today, user-generated content and other Web 2.0 elements will become an intrinsic part of web design in the future.

He says: “User reviews are becoming much more a part of the decision-making process of people choosing where to stay.”

He would like to see more hotel companies embracing this sort of content to build up personal interaction with customers, either through blogs or content such as the general manager’s tips on the local area or a heads-up on forthcoming events. “The equivalent in retail is the Waterstones’ store manager putting up recommendations for the week. It gives the customer that extra feeling of being looked after by someone,” he says.

Starwood Hotels and Resorts, which has eight brands including Sheraton, W and Aloft, is trying to give each brand a different look and feel throughout the online experience. The Sheraton brand introduced user-generated content on its website almost a year ago.

Brian Pratt, vice-president for e-commerce, says: “With the Sheraton brand it’s all about Web 2.0 and that has a cost implication in terms of storage and space but the thinking is that we want customers to feel they belong so we let them post their experiences. It has been a fantastic way to build a feeling of belonging to the brand.”

With so many brands to juggle, Starwood has taken the brave and costly step of putting each brand on a different booking platform, so that none are dependent on another when it comes to making changes.

Pratt says: “It does come at a cost, but without the web you cannot build the brand and if you believe in each different brand having a personality then you have to do it.”

He believes site design is all about each brand’s website being flexible enough to accommodate every individual’s ‘trip persona’, whether they are shopping for a weekend break, business trip or family holiday.

Meanwhile, independent property The Landmark Hotel is trying to tick all the boxes with an online booking engine, good images and interactive elements such as a maps and a blog, keeping customers updated on the progress of the new health club.

The Internet is an important channel for the hotel, which receives about 11% of total bookings a month online. The five-star Landmark overhauled its website last summer, and as an independent hotel with no distinct brand it wanted to have an entry page with a series of subsections for events, spa and dining.

The strategy enables consumers to find the hotel’s homepage from the web or come straight through to the relevant pages from a search engine.

The segmental approach the hotel is taking helps its search engine optimisation, enabling the site to be found by more potential customers as well as those who are already familiar with the property.

Everything a hotel company decides to have on its website, from basic location and rates details, a booking engine and rich content such as pictures, videos and user-generated content, to integration with other systems and dynamic functionality, comes at a cost.

Experts say designing a site can cost anything from £30,000 to £50,000 for a mid-range site and up to £500,000 for a large site.

Dawson puts it differently. “It’s way more important than fitting out your reception,” he says. “Hotels need to be thinking on that level because it’s much more global and has a much bigger reach than any one of your properties.”

Hotel companies also need to consider annual maintenance costs before they start the design project, which according to Netizen Digital’s Labuschagne are between 20% and 25% of the initial cost of the site.

“It depends on the traffic, whether the website is database driven and also the bandwidth,” he says.

While it is vital to get the key ingredients of a booking engine and rich content right, many hotel groups fail way before that with fundamentals such as basic up-to-date, accurate information.

Rate parity is a common trap many hotel websites fall into and is an immediate turn-off for customers, and in many cases stops them from coming back.

“The rates have to be the same as I would get if I phone up. There is nothing more irritating than finding higher rates on the web,” says Matthews.

Pratt’s pet hates are out-of-date information or sites in other countries that assume you speak the language.

He says: “Whenever I see a special offer that is out of date the site is dead and I will never return. It means the company doesn’t have the infrastructure to fix that sort of thing so they are not dedicated to the web.”

And for Labuschagne, too much content is another common failing.

“The less cluttered it is, the easier it is to navigate and find what you are looking for,” he says.

It’s no longer rocket science for a hotel to get its website right and there are many companies out there offering help. However, hotels must decide from the onset what their objectives are and involve designers and the search engine optimisation team throughout the process.

Labuschagne says: “Sites such as Lastminute.com’s hotels section have done well because you get really good details of what you are booking. You almost get the experience before you book.

“It’s about bringing the different departments together before you start designing your site.”

Simple things will annoy customers and turn them off a site and yet, hotel companies can expect to get 20% to 30% of their revenue from their website.

And, speaking from experience, Matthews concludes: “It can cost a lot more to get it wrong because you have to do it again.”

Who’s getting it right?

www.orient-express.com: The site is clean, exudes luxury and doesn’t bombard customers with too much information in one go. You can check availability from the hotels’ homepage or go into a reservations page. As soon as customers pick a hotel from the dropdown menu an image and location details are displayed.

The reservation page has a month-by-month calendar and rates are given in local currency. There is also the option to change the language of the site.

While the system checks availability a further image of the hotel is shown. The site then provides a list of room categories with a description of the room and what is included. These details are repeated in the next step, reassuring customers of their choice before the final confirmation.

www.malmaison.co.uk: There is loads going on within this site but it’s fun and interactive. The site gives a good feel for what the Malmaison concept is all about and customers can immediately see where the hotels are with a ticker-tape running across the top.

The site enables customers to do all the usual things such as find details of hotels, rooms and restaurants but also have the opportunity to e-mail the head chef within the ‘ask Keith’ section.

For the opening of the Malmaison Liverpool (last month) the site featured an interactive game giving surfers a virtual tour of the property and the chance to win a stay. There are also sections on forthcoming openings and events taking place at the hotels. The booking engine is a three-step process providing address and property details, a list of rates and total cost of stay.

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