As holiday browsing and booking increasingly takes place across multiple channels, offering travel shoppers a seamless experience across all devices has become absolutely essential.
In the move towards mobile-friendliness, implementing responsive design to ensure your hotel’s website adapts to smaller screen sizes is a great start. But it’s not enough.
To really get the most out of mobile, it’s important to include mobile-specific design features which make life easier for consumers and actually drive conversions. Why? Because customers interact with content differently on mobile than they do on desktop. They often engage in what Google has named “micro-moments” – short bursts of activity which they carry out while on the move or during a few idle moments of their day. Travellers browsing like this are pushed for time and prone to distraction, but they’re also open to inspiration.
In today’s blog, we’ll take a look at some of the crucial design features that will provide an enhanced mobile user experience for your guests.
Frustration-Free Interaction
Ensure all interactive elements are finger-sized and don’t need to be tapped multiple times to generate a response. Navigation buttons should be large enough to tap and spaced out enough to avoid irritating miss-taps. Remember, if you frustrate mobile travel consumers who are often browsing in between other tasks, they’re going to bounce.
Eliminate Excess Scrolling
Scrolling on a small screen is another irritant that turns off those looking to find travel information quickly. Adjust your text, images, and element size on list views so potential guests can easily take in all available options in one glance.
Less Is More
On a smaller screen, simpler is always better. Do you really need to include all your website page’s content and images? Try to pack too much onto a page and it’ll feel too busy and become difficult to navigate. Try a stripped back approach which includes only the most essential info travellers are likely to be looking for. Less vital content can be tucked away in drop-down or pop-up windows, while using a “read more” button is a great way to break up larger paragraphs of text.
Prominent CTAs
Nearly three quarters of mobile hotel bookings happen a week or less before a stay. To make things simple for these last-minute bookers, ensure your “Book Now” buttons are large and displayed prominently on your homepage so travel shoppers aren’t forced to scroll around or move to another page on your website to move through the booking funnel. You should also make sure your hotel’s phone number is “callable” when a user taps it. Again, securing the mobile booking is all about keeping life simple and hassle-free for your users.
High Quality, Eye-catching Images
As on desktop, high quality imagery is key to getting consumers excited to book. It’s safe to say that attention spans are even smaller among mobile audiences, so carefully select the images which are most likely to engage and show off your property and destination in the best light.
It’s best to avoid small photos that have to be pinched to enlarge. Go for wide, large clickable images where you can, and opt for photo galleries which can be swiped through, rather than navigated by tapping as this generally works better on smaller screens.
If you want to drive more mobile bookings, simply scaling down your hotel’s website to suit a small screen often isn’t enough. Keep in mind the behaviours and needs of your mobile audience, and include design elements which make life easier for them and you’ll notice the rewards as mobile plays an even more important role in the holiday booking process.
Contact your support team today about upgrading your website to be fully responsive!
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