Common hotel website pain points and how to fix them

Whether browsing hotels on a smartphone during their commute or finalising their choice on a desktop at home consumers expect a seamless experience when booking a hotel stay online. However, while building the scorecard for our new Digital CX Defined: Hotels benchmarking report, it became clear that there are many hotel website pain points that block consumers from completing their research and booking accommodation.

Drawing on user research previously conducted for hotel clients, plus the views and personal experience of Inviqa’s CX experts, we determined the optimal hotel website user journeys for our hotel CX scorecard. Below, we share some of the common frustrations encountered when trying to book a hotel room and explore the impact they can have on hotel website conversion.

Lack of transparency regarding room details and amenities  

Arguably, one of the most important things users look for when booking a hotel is a clear, accurate description of each room type and what is provided. Many will base their decision on which hotel to choose on whether it has an appropriate room type available. A lack of transparency leaves customers feeling uncertain, potentially blocking them from making a purchase decision.

This was a common frustration shared by many of the Inviqa team when we asked them for their hotel website pain points:

“I want to know a lot of details about the room before deciding whether it's the right choice for me. This is easily achieved via their website with good written room descriptions, plus multiple images of the room type including bathroom pictures and a picture of the balcony if there is one. Yet so many hotels and chains fail on properly describing what they are selling online.” – Joanna Perry, Marketing Director

“No clear list of things available (hairdryer, shampoo, kettle). Also, if it’s a bigger hotel – where is the room located? Am I just above a playground or restaurant?” – Dominika Gemra, Experience Designer

“When the hotel's booking page is not transparent about what the rooms contain. This can get quite confusing. For example, when multiple different room options show up after entering the dates and only the king/queen room has a kettle but this is not clearly indicated. Borderline false advertising. I need a kettle while staying in a hotel, okay?” – Gabor Erdei, Senior Systems Administrator  

Solution: 
Hotel brands must ensure they’re providing a detailed description for each room type, accompanied by a clear list of room-specific amenities. 

We found the hotel brands that scored the highest overall in our Digital CX Defined report achieved full marks for their room and amenity descriptions.  

Room imagery that is unclear or irrelevant

In a similar vein to room descriptions, other often mentioned hotel website pain points focused on room imagery, with a lack of quantity, quality or even no clear distinction between the images displayed for each room type all mentioned.

“Room images that are a close-up of a vase of flowers, with a blurry image of the rest of the room behind it. I don't need mood imagery, I need to know if there's room for my suitcase in the wardrobe.” – Ben Casey, Tech Lead

“Not being clear which images relate to which room type. If a hotel is undergoing renovations, often only some rooms have been renovated and the rest have not. It’s always super unclear if the one you are booking has already undergone renovations.” – Dominika Gemra, Experience Designer

“When I can’t clearly see images of the room type I am booking, or I’m not given a clear reason to book directly.” – Dominique Bergantino, CEO

When carrying out our benchmarking research across 20 hotel brands, we came across sites where the same images appeared to be used for multiple room types despite the different listed amenities and costs. This is particularly concerning for customers as it makes it obvious that the images given may not accurately reflect reality, breeding a sense of distrust.  

Solution: 
Provide a range of clear images for each room type, displaying key amenities as well as the room’s general layout, including images at an appropriate zoom. 

Keep on top of any room renovations, updating each gallery accordingly. 

And stay away from unnecessary close-ups that add no value. This could appear misleading or an attempt to pad out the image gallery while avoiding pictures that show more accurate views of the whole room.  

Inflexible search and availability options

Every individual attempting to book a hotel stay will have their own needs and requirements, therefore offering customers multiple ways to search is vital. When searching for a specific property or hotel room at a specific property, the site’s functionality needs to support this variety of consumer missions.

Inviqa’s Content Manager provides one example of such a mission: when a guest has already selected a hotel and room type and is prepared to flex on dates to secure their booking choice.

“When a hotel has a separate page for each room type but doesn't provide an option to search availability for it specifically. If I've fallen in love with your 'North Facing Park View Executive Room with King-Sized Bed,’ I'd like to see the dates when that room is available, not click through the date picker and hope it's available on the dates I've selected, please and thank you.” – Iris de Jong, Content Manager

Solution: 
Provide a hotel booker tool that allows customers to clearly see room availability and cost per night against different dates, such as on calendar view. 

Also, provide various search and availability options. Only 35% of the hotels assessed in our CX report offered these features - doing so will help hotel brands stay ahead of the competition.  

Artificial urgency and unnecessary pop-ups

Hotel websites often use tactics to try and encourage faster conversion, but several of our team mentioned that consumers are wise to them and can be counter-productive.

“The artificial urgency injected by 'viewed 6 times in the last 4 hours' or 'only 3 rooms left at this price' alerts. They're there to serve the hotel's purposes, not mine.” – Ben Casey, Tech Lead

“Popups! So many popups interrupting you for offers, add-ons, etc. It's like chasing cockroaches off the screen; get one and another will just pop up in 30 seconds. Only 3 of these rooms still available! 15% Off if you book now! Breakfast buffet for only £25! If you do this, I will never use your business.” – Quentin Walker, Lead QA

Solution: 
Consider what your hotel brand's value proposition is – and how and where this should be communicated along the website user journey – to maximise conversion. For example, have an easy-to-locate offers page and consider merchandising special offers in a header banner, rather than a pop-up that may appear and interrupt their decision-making process.

We also recommend testing alerts and pop-ups, and analysing their impact through your site analytics, to determine whether they are counter-productive.

No central location for hotel information and policies  

When a user is visiting a hotel site for the first time, one of the key things that will determine whether they continue is the initial information provided about the hotel and its policies, as well as how easy it is to find everything. This includes things like policies regarding children, check-in and check-out times, pet policies, parking information and anything else a visitor would likely want to know. This is something that alternative accommodation booking sites such as Airbnb and Booking.com do well, and so is a standard that consumers expect on hotel sites too.

“The most annoying thing about hotel online websites is they don't often show all the amenities in one place. You have to keep hunting for it. It's something that AirBnB does well. Also, I find it a hassle to know if there are electric [vehicle] chargers at the hotel, how many there are, if there is a parking fee on top of the charging fee, or if the chargers are free to use.” – Kaustav Bhattacharya, CTO

Not only is the content and clarity of the information important, but it’s essential that it's clearly signposted and easy to find. Having all this information in one place streamlines the customer journey and encourages quicker purchase decisions.

Solution: 
Display all key hotel information in one location that is clearly signposted. Include a general description of the hotel, contact details and address, hotel policies and anything else a potential guest may want to know. The fewer pain points customers are presented with the fewer blockers there are to conversion.  

Quick CX fixes can make a big difference

It was interesting to note that most of the frustrations highlighted by our team focused on content and information architecture, things that are relatively simple to fix. With a few thoughtful changes, hotels can greatly improve their online user experience and encourage more of their guests to book direct.

To read our in-depth assessment of the current state of digital CX for hotels, as well as more tips regarding best practices, download our Digital CX Defined: Hotels report or reach out to the Inviqa team if you’d like a chat about how we could support improving the experience on your website.