Hey everyone. Brian Fitzgerald here from O’Rourke hospitality marketing. Want to do another video today talking about why you might need a new website.

We’ve done a few videos in this series, looking at things like design trends and content management system. In this video, I want to talk about just general functionality and whether your website has some of the features and functions that, uh, consumers are looking for today.

They’re going to make a potential guests experience more positive on your site, and therefore more likely to book your hotel.

So we’re going to hit on, uh, four, four or five different things that we’re seeing that we, you think you should be thinking about.

And if you don’t have these types of features, uh, again, you might want to be thinking about a new website.

Uh, first is, is maps and interactive maps. There’s um, the dates days of just a static Google map that looks like Google are, are gone.

This is a great example where you can plot the hotel. You can put a radius that helps the user understand sort of distance wise is this within walking distance.

And then of course, everything here is clickable. You can pinpoint the hotel and then look at specific things within that radius mentioned how far of a distance things are.

So a great way for somebody to click around and, and understand sort of your proximity to everything. So that’s one example of a map.

Another, uh, great map option is, uh, for in this case, a larger resort that, uh, maybe just needs a little bit more wayfinding.

You know, there’s a sprawling resort over many acres. This helps, uh, the user learn more information, understand where things are physically laid out.

Uh, this property has done some cool stuff with little Instagram icons to denote. This is a great place to, to, to take a, uh, social media shot and post it.

So maps is one feature or function that, uh, you should be thinking about. The next is how to present a lot of information in a, in a nice, compelling way to the user.

And the way that we’ve solved for that in a lot of instances is making things sortable. Uh, in this case, this is an example of room types.

This property happens to have a lot of complicated room types and various room offerings. And this type of feature allows us to present that in a, in a nice way where the user can understand what their frame of mind is and what their traveling travel needs are and can can sort accordingly.

So these could be any number of different options. In this case, it happens to be accessible rooms, cottages, guestrooms, with pet friendly.

So presenting a lot of information in a, in a compelling and clean way. Uh, this is another example, but, uh, for a meeting space.

So again, if you have a meeting, um, a larger meeting complex or convention center component to your property, uh, this allows a meeting planner or somebody looking to book that meeting to sort based on what they might understand.

There needs to be on this case sort of size of the meeting space. And then one final example is around things to do or activities.

This property is, uh, a force resort. That’s open all four seasons. And so it’s great to be able to present to the user, how to, you know, all the different things that are available throughout the entire year.

Uh, next is a feature where you’re pulling dynamic content into the site. In this case, this is a casino property, and they have a jackpot.

This, this dollar number is actually pulling dynamically from a database so that guests and users of the site can understand what the, what the potential payout of the jackpot is.

In this case. Other examples might be dynamically pulling rates so that you could display something that says rates from, and that rate would update dynamically based on what’s actually in your, uh, in your CRS or in your PMs, as far as rates go, you could do other things around social media, or maybe you’re doing a sweepstakes and it could be a countdown with how much time is remaining.

So dynamic information that that’s really presents a more compelling message to the, to the end user. That’s another feature function to think about, uh, social media.

So if you, you, you, um, undoubtedly have your social media feeds Facebook, Instagram, maybe you have YouTube, maybe you have Pinterest.

Maybe you have TripAdvisor reviews. Being able to pull that information in and display it in a unique and compelling way is something that’s gonna make your site, uh, stand out from your competition.

So that’s another, uh, feature function that we really recommend to all of our clients. And then another one here is what we call a sticky navigation.

You’ll see, as I scroll, uh, over this site, this navigation stays with me. This is a great user experience feature.

Uh, so if your site doesn’t have that, you, you really should be thinking about how to get that incorporated. And then lastly is a gift shop, an online shop, uh, in this case, this property has taken their on property gift shop and put it online.

Uh, great additional revenue source, great for promotion during the holidays, black Friday, cyber Monday, get some extra revenue generation, uh, is.

So if you have all of these physical goods already, uh, adding and creating an online shop is extremely easy these days.

And so that might be another feature or function that you want to think about. So this is just a handful of things that, that we’re working on for our clients.

There’s probably 10 or 12 other things across various features and functions that, that, uh, might be worth talking about. And so again, if you’re looking at your site and seeing that maybe you don’t have a lot these things, or it just doesn’t feel elevated the way that it should then maybe a new site is something you should be thinking about and you’ll get in touch with us.

We’d be happy to help you out with that.