How to digitally prepare a hotel website for reopening

To say the COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged the travel industry is an understatement.

As a result of shelter-in-place orders and travel restrictions, hotels worldwide have seen bookings drop exponentially.

The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) estimates that 75 million travel related jobs are at risk, and the downstream effect on some of the small-to-midsize businesses remains unknown.

The industry may be at a standstill, but it certainly won’t last forever.

Our hotel partners are already setting social media and acquisition plans in place. To be ready for recovery, boutique hotels can lay the groundwork to ensure their digital ecosystem is in order before opening day - and a healthy digital ecosystem starts with your hotel website.

Here are four ways to perform housekeeping on your hotel website.

Be COVID-Conscious

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, all your actions tied to the tips below should keep COVID recovery in mind. Consumers are apprehensive to travel.

To ease that apprehension the travel and hospitality industry must work to offer reassurance.

Tell your customers and prospective travelers what you’re doing to ensure their well-being while they’re on site. Detail cleanliness, staff procedures, and any other policies you’ve put in place to create a safe and healthy experience for your guests.

Another way to be COVID-conscious is offer booking flexibility. In uncertain economic times, consumers need to be confident that they can change plans, or even cancel, should circumstances change.

Consider offering lenient cancellation policies and value-adds, such as hotel or food and beverage credits, along with competitive rates.

Not only will that give customers peace of mind, they’ll have the opportunity to explore your other amenities when they do come to stay.

Get back to basics

You have 15 seconds to keep a traveler’s attention when they click onto your website. In those 15 seconds you have to present the right message so your prospective customer will book.

The only way to capture a consumer’s attention is to have a modern, clean, easy-to-use website. When designing, or redesigning, a website, it’s important to keep the six key principles of website design in mind: including simplicity, easy navigation, information and design consistency, usability, and brevity.

The six key principles should influence everything you do. For example, your homepage should be free of clutter and navigation should be simple. Consider a collapsible menu or even a navigation style that only displays the sections most consumers have come to see.

Everything should be up to date and consistent, including pricing, hours of operations, offers, and more. In addition, your travelers should have access to the same experience regardless of whether they use a mobile device or desktop, which is possible using responsive design.

Talk the talk

Website copy can be compelling or confusing. To avoid it being the latter, it must be clear, enticing, and unique.

Travelers should be able to instantly understand the purpose of the copy, so avoid unnecessary word usage. For example, “Air-conditioned rooms” is clearer than “Each of our 145 exquisitely designed bedrooms come with top-of-the-line packaged thermal air-conditioning technology.”

Copy should make your travelers curious to learn more or complete your call-to-action (CTA). “In-built workstations and high-speed wifi make our rooms ideal for business travelers” is more enticing than “Our rooms are perfect for business travelers.”

Use copy to show how you are different than your competitors, such as highlighting awards or other unique features. COVID recovery tip: providing specifics on your cleaning and social distancing processes will be important to highlight.

One of the most important parts of website copy is the call to action, or CTA. A CTA can drive people to book or drive them to book elsewhere.

In a CTA, it’s important to use action words, create urgency and scarcity, and minimize risk. Focus on the value you bring and highlight offers.

Depending on when you will be open, or expect demand, your CTA may be softer to create comfort in booking now (with flexibility), but staying later.

Speed and optimize

One factor Google uses to determine search results rankings is the speed of your web pages. In addition, travelers using mobile to search are much more likely to leave a page if it takes longer than three seconds to load.

For all these reasons, use the Google Speed Test tool and contact your website developer to rectify any issues affecting your website speed.

Page speed issues can also help you identify other issues on your website, like large image files that need to be compressed, code bugs, or outdated plugins.

Pinterest increased SEM traffic and sign-ups by 15% by increasing their website speed by 40%, and increasing your website speed can help you achieve similar results.

In addition to website speed, now is the time to check website metrics to see what’s performing and what’s not.

Website traffic is likely slower than normal, enabling you to test on smaller audiences so you don’t waste valuable opportunities when traffic increases at a later date.

Test everything, such as CTA options, text, and imagery over a long enough period to give it statistical significance. If anything nets a positive change the answer is simple: keep it.

Your website is the window that gives potential travelers a view into your hotel. Right now it’s the only thing they have to make booking decisions, making it one of your most important assets.

Take the time to make the right changes so you can be ready to ramp up your marketing - and bookings - when travelers are ready to make plans.