Last month, we looked at how, using graphics and implementing navigation strategies, we could improve the site conversion capabilities of the InnTravel Website to generate more bookings and calls to action.  This month, our case study will look at Concierge Collection – a website offering exclusive hotels and villas beyond luxury.  As we have some different ideas about how the home page should portray this company, for this case study we will break with our convention of creating an idea for a single page and offer two sections - a home page and a hotel page.

Want to volunteer your site for a future site conversion analysis? Get in touch via marketing@leadgenerators.co.uk

The Current Website

First Graphic Impressions

What we see is one image at the top, followed by a lot of text about “Our Philosophy”.  In addition to black text on a white background, we have the usual areas to receive the newsletter, and office hours. Once you go below the image at the top of the page, there is nothing to say that this site has anything interesting or unusual.  I suspect that the use of rich purple on the site is there to hint at something a little more aristocratic, but the huge white text box only speaks of the mundane. Overall, the home page seems to have the effect of making the whole experience a little dull and flat.

Navigation

The navigation of the site suffers from a classic problem which I have seen in many websites.  While the readers are offered the option of navigating according to destination (which makes perfect sense), they also have the option of selecting categories such as ‘our collection’, ‘out of the ordinary’ and ‘hidden gems’.  I personally found this confusing as I have no idea what the difference is and, more to the point, all the hotels and villas in such an esteemed collection should be out of the ordinary AND gems.  In addition, it almost implies that the “our collection” category offers properties that are neither out of the ordinary, nor gems when the reality is that it offers accommodation beyond the expectations of most.

Our Suggested Modifications

Graphic Communication and Copywriting:

The purpose of graphics is to communicate brand positioning, emotions and feeling.  This company offers a collection of hotels and villas that are at the very high end of the market and the graphics should convey this very clearly.  Contrary to texts, which cannot instantly demonstrate the elegant feel and communicate the exclusivity and opulence of the collection of hotels and villas on offer, an image really proves that this is less a cut above, than a deep slice!  To this effect, as you can see we have utilised an image that speaks of unequivocal luxury as the main method of communicating this brand positioning on the home page. 

As far as text on the home page is concerned, we have kept this to a bare minimum and have purposely avoided being factual (which is boring), and stuck to rich, decadent copy (which is emotional).  We have divided these between three headline statements - luxury, service and indulgence – which should instantly demonstrate exactly what the company stands for, enhancing the flavour of the main image.

However, as much as this kind of luxury should be communicated primarily via visuals we appreciate that, once the packaging has been unwrapped, so to speak, clients will want more information to confirm their requirements in a hotel.  For this reason, we have taken the liberty of creating a vision for an internal hotel page too.

As you can see, while we have not focussed so much on graphics, we still feel there should be a clear picture of what to expect from each hotel and have thus filled the entire top banner with an image of it. We’ve also enabled scrolling between the images, without resorting to the less user friendly pop-up script currently in use on the site which currently obstructs the page when clicked, and doesn’t offer any assistance when trying to find individual images.

On the hotel detail page we have attempted to evoke emotions through the copy once again, talking about the hotel in a slightly more exclusive manner than most sites would.  Less important are the number of rooms in this hotel and more important is the fact that hotel is situated on the famous Route Nationale and the mention of the renowned 3 star Michelin chef who offers her gastronomic creations exclusively to her elite patrons.  Because we have provided less hard facts, we have made the information sheet for the hotel easily accessible with a tasteful, but obvious, icon drawing attention to it. We have also included a ‘call me back’ feature on the hotel page, ensuring that the proactive enquiry is never far from the site visitor’s mind, when they are drawn in by the flavour of the experience on offer at each hotel. And the idea of being called back, rather than having to phone themselves should only enhance the feel of top notch service we have tried to create throughout the website.

Navigation

On the assumption that even the privileged make their choice of exclusive hotels and villas by destination, we have featured the main countries as the core navigation under the image on the home page.  As a secondary navigation we offer properties by hotel or by villa.  As mentioned above, we don’t feel the need to clutter the navigation with confusing additional options for categories such as “out of the ordinary” and “hidden gems”, which are probably meaningless to all expect possibly the staff of Concierge Collection. The final change is removing the newsletter signup form. While we believe a newsletter is still a brilliant way of communicating with clients, a site that indicates an exclusive experience really loses something, when anyone can sign up to a newsletter with the latest offers. The illusion of exclusivity should be maintained, at least on the front page with a newsletter signup page perhaps included elsewhere.

We’ve taken a very different approach to that which we took last month, but when it comes to this kind of luxury, we believe companies really have to prove their worth and not rely on any ‘cheap’ tactics which could detract from the exclusive, refined and sophisticated feel the website should evoke. In the case of this kind of luxury, you will find that a few pictures will be worth several thousand words of copy.  

If you would like to volunteer your site for assessment in our upcoming newsletter, then please contact us on marketing@leadgenerators.co.uk