Hotels hewing to the latest website design trends can deliver an excellent customer experience that converts casual browsers into paying guests. When hotel website design reflects a brand’s look and feel, searchers get a solid first impression from the first click. Web design trends give hoteliers new tools to highlight property features and set guests’ expectations. 

While speed and security will forever top the must-have features of a hotel’s website design, incorporating current hotel website design trends, like Artificial Intelligence, scrolling elements, and smart content, can help any brand stand out from the crowd. 

Be sure to follow these hotel website design trends in 2024:

1. User-Centric Design Principles

User experience web design trends aren’t going anywhere, especially for the hospitality industry. Clean, clutter-free website interfaces should offer enough information to answer guests’ questions without overwhelming them. Focusing on necessary visual elements and forgoing the extras that offer little value creates a clear path for guests to book their room or learn more about the resort’s offerings. Strategically placed white space guides visitors to the hotel’s logo or booking form, and navigation menus allow anyone to explore the property, frustration-free.

2. Mobile-First Design

Mobile-friendly features are necessary for capturing traffic searching vacation destinations on phones or tablets, but current website design trends are shifting this philosophy from ‘responsive’ to ‘mobile-first.’ Instead of adapting a site designed for desktop users, web developers are considering mobile users first, designing for the smallest screens and then scaling up. Prioritizing the small-screen experience ensures navigation is seamless for mobile users—who make up a large share of online bookings—without losing the impact on larger screens. This mobile-first approach results in website designs that resemble apps, featuring intuitive navigation, large touch targets, and adequately sized images.

3. Inclusive and Accessible Web Design Trends

Accessibility is an essential aspect of hotel website designs, making guests’ booking processes easier and opening the property to a broader audience. Web design trends for accessibility include incorporating color contrast, keyboard navigation, screen reader compatibility, voice search optimization, and translation technology that improve the experience for all users, with and without access challenges. A hotel prioritizing an inclusive design captures a wider audience and communicates a socially responsible stance that attracts new guests. 

4. AI-Powered Customer Service

Improvements to Artificial Intelligence (AI) have led the way for bot-powered customer service, one of the top website design trends for this year. Hotels with limited resources are making room for Artificial Intelligence-powered chatbots and virtual assistants within the website’s home pages. Including bots on a website’s interface allows customers to ask questions and receive quick, accurate responses 24/7, and when a staff member is needed, the conversation can be handed off to a human with little interruption. 

5. Multimedia Design Elements

Give guests the keys to check out room types and view the property virtually before booking using augmented reality (AR) and multimedia design elements. With quality hotel photography and other assets, hoteliers can create 3D tours that highlight the property and elevate areas once reserved for stock photos. These virtual tours answer guests’ questions while showcasing room features and property amenities that can inspire upgrades and add-on services.

6. Fast-Loading Pages

Any features that speed up page load times are critical web design trends to latch onto for the upcoming year. This tech not only improves the user experience, it helps the hotel’s search engine optimization. Intelligent loading techniques, such as lazy loading (which waits to download images or other elements until the user has scrolled to the area) and a headless content management system (CMS), are two up-and-coming website design trends that improve page performance to deliver fast, responsive experiences.

7. Single-Page Scrolling 

Scrolling stimulates visitors and encourages them to continue exploring a website well below the fold. This allows website designers to deploy 3D features, animations, and other interactive elements to keep readers engaged in the hotel’s website content. Users don’t need to do anything except scroll to watch aerial footage of endless beaches, review luxurious amenities, and see room and property previews. The booking widget follows searchers, so checking availability for their stay doesn’t require leaving the page.

8. Smart Video Content and Cinemagraphs

Motion captures an audience’s attention and provides visual interest amongst static page content. Selling a hotel stay or spa experience using an immersive video transports guests to the destination and makes booking hard to resist. Cinemagraphs are another similar website design trend that puts short videos or GIFs on a loop to strengthen storytelling.

9. Bento Box Information Grids

A website organized into information grids, nicknamed the bento box design, is one of the latest web design trends hotels can use to attract younger guests and give the site a modern feel. This design style isn’t limited to a certain theme or color palette, so any hotel can adopt this organizational layout. Resorts with many amenities can showcase all the offerings using these organized compartments to outline the breadth of property features without asking guests to browse multiple pages. 

10. Branded Maps

Most businesses include a Google map showing the hotel’s location, but the latest hotel website design trends let hoteliers show a custom map that fits into the website’s theme. These apps can include a pinned location and customized roads, labels, and colors so it is aesthetically pleasing on the website and highlight items in the area you want guests to notice.

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A thoughtful website design benefits the hotelier and the guest, providing a seamless experience that lets the property’s features shine. When a website highlights the hotel’s value and answers guests’ questions, they can book this stay and the next with confidence.

If you aren’t sure when or where to start a hotel’s website redesign, reach out to the experts at TravelBoom to create a website that converts.