Rule number one for smoother direct bookings
When booking a hotel we’re a picky bunch, but most of the time, we don’t really know what we want. The average person will visit 38 websites over a 45-day period to find the right destination at the right price*. This means an awful lot of wasted time, scanning the internet and looking at websites that for whatever reason aren’t making us book. But what’s putting us off?
After surveying over 1,000 people, we found the eight things people want when booking a hotel. This blog analyses the first of those eight things – Making it Simple, Short and Clean.
Make it Simple, Short and Clean
You have a customer on your site that wants to book. That’s part of the battle. Just make sure the process is simple. If it isn’t, then they’re off faster than you can say book now. 94% of people have abandoned a booking online, with an alarming 29% putting it down to the system that was being used. As one of our user testers said:
“I’m very busy and I need clear concise information, I don’t want to spend ten hours booking my hotel.”
What people want is to be able to find the ‘Book’ button quickly; to be offered concise information that helps them make a decision and to be able to get through the payment in as few clicks as possible. We would suggest using bolder colours, a bigger size and a different location to highlight that glorious ‘Book Now’ button. It’s important to be as obvious as possible, but make sure it still fits with your branding and design.
When the customer is in the booking process, they want to make as few clicks as possible. Extra information on rooms and tiny pictures will make things cluttered and confusing. Many websites think it’s a done deal by this stage, but this is a real make or break time for the transaction so don’t give them reason to leave. Try bullet points, or click to expand options to better engage with those that actually want the extra information in the finishing stages.
If you keep everything short and to the point, it will all be viewable on one page, meaning details of multiple rooms can be displayed and your click count is kept to a minimum. Again, cut the clutter, especially chunks of small text. We love photos, but a plethora of tiny, low-res images just won’t add anything here. Cut them.
Running a beautiful hotel and serving guests as best possible is part of the game. You have a wonderful hotel and you want to tell the world about it. So keep it simple and then both you and your customers will get what they want, it’s that age old saying, ‘less is more’.
Find out the seven other things that people want when booking a hotel by downloading a FREE version of our e-book here.
