Comments on: Hotel Website Makeover: Yorkland Hotel Toronto

By: jackson

jackson — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 08:02:51 +0000

That is very great news.

By: Toronto marketing company

Toronto marketing company — Tue, 18 May 2010 08:27:24 +0000

It is Really good artical posted by you. Website Analysis is so nice. web site designed is so nice, but Yorkland hotel website is better designed to any other web site. thank you very much for it.

By: Josiah Mackenzie

Josiah Mackenzie — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 03:50:13 +0000

Glad you’re enjoying this series, Guido. To answer your question: it depends on the hotel. It is definitely possible to build a hotel website around a blog – which Todd Lucier explains here:

http://www.tourismkeys.ca/blog/2008/12/in-2009-ditch-your-website-and-focus-on-blogging/

By: Happy Hotelier

Happy Hotelier — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:04:11 +0000

Added question
Now you have been playing around with the Thesis Theme, would you recommend incorporating a hotel website in a blog with Thesis setup rather than vise versa incorporating the blog in a static website?

By: Happy Hotelier

Happy Hotelier — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:01:30 +0000

Hi Josiah
Great review and by following your and the commenters’ comments I’m getting a lot of food for my hotel website revival:-) Thanks!

By: Josiah Mackenzie

Josiah Mackenzie — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 04:08:39 +0000

These are all very good points, Brice – I appreciate you sharing them.

It’s important web designers remember to not get carried away with stock photography. Smiling faces is great, but can become meaningless. As you said, the purpose is to sell rooms, so the more hotel photography the better.

I also think the hotel could do a little better job of producing more destination content. One hotel owner I’m working with in Istanbul personally publishes all the “insider” places he finds on a special blog:

http://www.istanbulinsiderguide.com/

By: Brice

Brice — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 09:27:30 +0000

Great review Josiah and thank you for your blog!

On that case I definitely agree with you but I would add the following things:

- You are selling a HOTEL online: your landing page does not display a single room or hotel-related picture! Marketing on lifestyle and soft attributes is great but do not forget what your core profession is!

-I would personally display more large HD pictures focusing on the hotel experience and the destination (not the hotel product alone), and of course, as Josiah recommended: launch a Flickr Strategy as a complement (which is great for gaining notoriety + SEO).

-Rich media such as short video clips is also great and could be used for other purposes in a viral online strategy.

-Finally, I would recommend adding more relevant content to your customers: giving informations about your hotel is important but: helping the customer organizing its stay in the destination would be even better and would help raise your conversion rate: online concierge, calendar of upcoming events, google maps mashups with “the concierge’s recommendations around the hotel” etc.

All in all: try to shift from using the web as an advertisement platform to offering real added value to your future customers! Hotel business is all about service: why not offering a glimpse of the quality of your service online?

I hope that i didn’t make too many english mistakes!

Brice from France