Luxury hotels pride themselves on providing unique and bespoke experiences for their guests, but frequently neglect the very beginning of the user journey. By failing to offer a unique digital experience to prospective guests, these hotels lose out on direct bookings and struggle to position themselves as truly premium providers.
The issue: A templated design for a premium service
Even amongst 5-star hotels in the UK and Ireland, a majority use templated website solutions provided by their booking engines. As such, the first impression received by potential guests completely lacks the attention to detail and commitment to quality that these hotels otherwise pride themselves on.
Not only this, but the absence of quality design and the general dysfunction of these templated websites make it difficult for guests to book rooms, and reduce the perceived status of the hotel itself.
This causes:
- Reduced volumes of direct bookings through your website, as users struggle to complete their journeys
- More commissions paid to OTAs, and increased long-term reliance on these providers
- Lower brand awareness amongst your target audiences, as your website gradually ranks lower on search and AI platforms
- Decreased perception of your hotel as a premium option, as your brand is not presented accurately online
The solution: A truly bespoke website to welcome your guests
To solve these issues, hotels need to focus on the experience delivered to guests on their website. By building a high-performing and user-friendly digital presence, guests will receive an immediate sense of quality and gain an understanding of your hotel’s unique qualities.
In turn, this will increase your share of direct bookings, bring in more website traffic, and allow you to position yourself as a truly premium offering. In the long-run, this improved digital presence will also build a positive brand image amongst users, and encourage repeat visits.
Most hotels avoid investing in their website, but fail to account for the lost revenue that this can cause. As we’ve shown previously, the hotel sector loses roughly 13% of revenue to OTA commissions, in large part due to their inability to generate direct bookings through their own sites. By relying on cheap template sites, luxury hotels only worsen this issue for themselves.
Previous success: The Killarney Park
At Kooba we’ve solved this exact issue before. For the Killarney Park Hotel, we delivered a beautiful and unique design solution, centred around a distinctive horizontal scroll. With an improved website platform, the Killarney Park could drive more traffic, more direct bookings, and increased revenue per guest.
You can read our full case study here: https://kooba.co.uk/case-studies/the-killarney-park
Ultimately, digital success for luxury hotels isn’t complicated. All you have to do is treat your website with the same attention as any other element of the guest experience.
To learn more about what Kooba can do for your hotel’s digital presence, just get in touch with our team today!
