7 keys to convert visits to your hotel’s website into reservations

As a result of the pandemic, new travel habits have emerged, and they are here to stay. In this context, customers now continue to seek flexibility when making their reservations rather than a very economical rate and are more concerned about how committed hotels are to sustainability.

Also, the search for direct contact with the hotel has increased. This is confirmed by the latest study by HOTREC (the European hospitality employers’ association) whose results reveal a change since the pandemic: direct sales in 2021 had a significant increase, rising to represent 59.7 % of the market share. Since March 2020, hotels have made an over effort to promote their direct channels (web, call centre, social media …) in the sales policy and this has been rewarded by direct sales exceeding those of online agencies. This represents a great opportunity to enhance direct channels, to continue increasing sales in these channels and profitability.

Therefore, all direct sales channels must be optimised at all times, with the website being the most influential when it comes to customer decision making. The web showcases the hotel; it is the channel to which they go to have the most accurate information and to get an idea of what their stay can be like.

A well-planned website is an opportunity to differentiate yourself, communicate your brand image and above all to sell, so it is important to make sure that the website is conversion-oriented, with calls to action, impactful images, an effective booking engine, intuitive browsing and differentiating elements that manage to convert visits into reservations.

With these ideas in mind, here are seven tips for your hotel website to convert more visitors into guests:

1. Deliver a positive user experience

The site must have a clear information architecture and an intuitive design: the customer must be able to easily find what they are looking for in a few seconds. Otherwise, they may leave the web and turn to other sources such as OTAs.

It is recommended that the booking engine is visible throughout the browsing process so that the user can check rates and availability at any time without having to scroll much more through the rest of the site.

To speed reservations up, the process should not have too many steps, guiding the user throughout the purchasing process.

In this last step, it is essential to have a secure means of payment by installing a security certificate so that customer data cannot be stolen. You also have to consider the payment systems available in the market to incorporate into the web those that your target customers use the most to guarantee a safe and comfortable process.

We also recommend the possibility of checking in from the hotel’s website in a section specially enabled for it. This contributes to improving the customer experience from start to finish, as it gives you greater autonomy and safety when managing your reservation.

If you want to learn about all the benefits of implementing an online check-in system in your property, in this article we explain why it has become a key tool and what advantages it brings to your operation and customers.

2. Have a responsive design

Many users check different hotel aspects and book from their mobile phones or tablets directly on the hotel’s website: according to Payment Innovation Hub, 78 % of travel reservations are already made online. Another study by Criteo, highlights the unstoppable rise of reservations through mobile devices. For example, reservations already account for 39 % in the hotels category.

These data make it clear that to achieve a high conversion rate content must be optimised and correctly visible from any device and for the booking engine to work from any of these platforms so that users can search and book easily.

If you are not sure if your website is optimised for mobile devices, you can check out this Google test page: https://developers.google.com/search/mobile-sites/get-started?hl=es

3. Use quality images

Do not underestimate the power of images. The hotel’s website only has a few seconds to make a good first impression and captivate the potential guest before they leave, so you not only have to answer their questions quickly but also create a visual impact.

The first thing customers want to see on the web is the product. So you have to show it with quality images of the rooms, your services, satisfied guests … while being honest and realistic. There is nothing more frustrating for a guest than realising that the hotel has nothing to do with what is published online. If images or information that does not correspond to reality are used, the guest will be highly dissatisfied and that may lead to bad reviews and, therefore, negatively affect the property’s reputation.

Images are louder than words so it is crucial to select those that allow you to tell a story in which to highlight all those aspects that make it unique.

4. Include catchy messages

The message conveyed by the text also plays an important role because in addition to informing, it can persuade, convey the brand’s personality and is a differentiating element vs. the competitors.

The information provided on the web must be generous, accessible and easy to read for users; adapted to the language and nationality as well as other devices. For example, you can achieve greater readability on mobile devices with words and short sentences, more verbs than nouns, words that refer to the senses and with a catchy narrative.

The latter is achieved with the use of messages that argue, demonstrate and explain instead of using empty words, which decorate the text but do not inform of anything in particular and could serve either a luxury hotel or a hostel. These messages have to be aligned with the target audience; in other words, you have to know who you write for (needs, concerns, language used, etc.) before publishing any text on the web.

However, some techniques always work to attract visitors to your website and encourage them to book as soon as possible. For example, include messages that make you think about the need to book quickly (offers with an expiration date), highlight the advantages of booking on the web or include the word free or complimentary (for premium brands).

5. Take care of organic positioning

The above points lead us to the conclusion that web optimisation to improve conversions and SEO are closely related. Thus, the property’s website must be built with both guests and search engines in mind.

This implies using keywords that are relevant to your target audience (thinking especially of the long tail), working on the link building with partners, blog or tourist pages as well as branding in social media and local SEO to position in local intention searches. All these actions will help to achieve visibility in search engines, achieving better positions and attracting qualified traffic to your site, favouring the increase in conversions.

Keep in mind that in SEO for hotels the competition is fierce: the accommodations compete with each other to be in the top positions but also with OTAs and other hotel marketplaces. Therefore, it is essential to have a SEO strategy to have greater visibility, without this there are no visits and without visits, there is no option to generate reservations.

6. Show guest reviews

Including positive reviews or testimonials from guests who have stayed in the hotel is a great way to encourage potential customers to make their reservation.

Many travellers look for reviews online before booking so it would be a serious mistake not to have a reviews section where guests talk about their experience. The most convenient thing is to put these opinions on the home page, well visible.

There are widgets, such as Bellbot, that automatically display selected comments from satisfied guests with the property, that can also encourage the visitor to make their reservation.

Nor should we rule out the idea of adding widgets from the review pages themselves like Tripadvisor to show reviews from these websites. This contributes to increasing brand trust, demonstrating the authenticity of the information, and generating reservations on the hotel’s website. For this reason, it is interesting to encourage guests to share their experience on Tripadvisor and other portals.

With Hotelinking it is also possible to create automated post-stay emails where guests can rate their hotel experience on the most important online reputation channels according to their origin: Tripadvisor, Google Review, Holidaycheck, Yelp, Tophotel or Zoover.

The interesting thing about this communication is that with a single click the customer is redirected to the online reputation channel, directly to the hotel’s profile, making it easier for the customer to leave their opinion.

Thanks to automated submissions, your hotel will receive a constant flow of reviews and, as a result, will be able to climb the rankings more easily, improve brand visibility and get more direct bookings.

7. Have a bot to encourage bookings

Chatbots are playing an increasingly important role in hotel operations: from driving direct bookings and increasing website conversion to helping the front desk automate repeat guests’ requests and enquiries. However, its success depends largely on whether it is set up properly and time is spent improving it with new questions or correcting current ones.

The evolution of these bots presents many potential uses as they can perform a wide range of tasks. However, other types of virtual assistants require fewer set ups and time, which also encourage direct sales. They do not focus on generating a conversation but on encouraging users who visit the page to book through it by offering the possibility of benefiting from an offer and adding a series of advantages to their reservation without paying more for it.

In this way, the potential guest enjoys extra benefits that will not be found on other websites and OTAs, and the hotel earns reservations through its own channel, with the consequent savings in intermediary commissions.

Hotelinking has a tool, called Bellbot, which aims for users who visit the page to book through it or if they do not do so at the moment we can capture their details to remind them later if they want to do so.

To access these incentives, the user simply has to enter the details that the online assistant requests such as email, name, surname, date of birth and gender. The widget will then show them the promotional code of the offer that they can redeem on their booking. In addition, it integrates a feature that shows the average rating and customer reviews to convey that trust and transparency necessary to make them opt for that accommodation

In short, your hotel’s website is more than your business card: visitors will remain on your site if it is visually attractive, informative and easy to browse; but it is also essential for it to aim for the goal you pursue: conversion. And to achieve this you have to optimise the website in such a way that it guides potential guests to make a reservation.