The Inn at Hastings Park welcomes guests to the cradle of the Revolution. Featuring an extensive culinary program and a blend of history and contemporary design, the Inn offers the best possible point of departure for visitors to the birthplace of our country. O’Rourke partnered with the Inn to craft a website as distinct and welcoming as the hotel itself, and business growth soon followed.
Centered around a grand 1841 home, the Inn has been enlivened by New England’s most talented designers and a sustainable culinary program. Its care and attention has earned it the converted Relais & Chateaux designation, awarded to independent hotel operators who embody a passionate commitment to their craft. This passion extends to their team, who bring a wealth of hospitality experience to every guest. Their expertise, however, does not extend to web design, and their site was in need of attention.
The Inn at Hastings Park is the closest accommodation to the historic heart of Lexington. However, its outdated website and siloed user experience did little to encourage bookings at the Inn. While it shared useful information and helped travelers understand what distinguishes it from nearby hotels, the site’s navigation and structure made it difficult to check availability and book from any page.
Like many older websites, it also lacked the important technical underpinnings that drive site performance. These include meta-tags, search-engine-optimized text, and a responsive design that smoothly renders on mobile devices. All of these elements prevent visitors from finding the hotel in the first place, and contribute to more visitors bouncing — quickly leaving the site — instead of digging deeper. A portion of those who do may end up booking a competitor or use an OTA, cannibalizing a portion of the Inn’s revenue. We knew we could do better.
We had two main goals in our redesign: Enable booking in as few clicks as possible, and infuse an elevated design that echoes the experience of visiting the Inn. This led to an improved, simplified site structure with fewer, richer pages.
Our designers chose colors, textures, and typefaces that reflect the Inn’s palette. Updated photography and video drives home the elegance and comfort that guests have come to expect from hotels of this caliber. The new structure and design came together with careful attention to legibility and browser-friendly layouts. Now, any person on any device can easily explore the site.
Our efforts paid off. While we experienced only a modest 3.6% growth in website visits, those who visited were significantly more qualified and considered. Bookings and conversion rates both grew over 50% — an exceptional performance gain — demonstrating that visitors who could be quickly convinced to book did so on the spot. This means less skimming by OTAs and more money remaining with the establishment, boosting revenue by 31%.
The reimagined Inn at Hastings Park website places essential navigation front-and-center and above the fold, sitting on gorgeous, slow-pan video encapsulating the guest experience. Organized by guest rooms, dining, and events, the simplified journey quickly directs users to the information they need with fewer clicks.
Booking a room is now seamless and intuitive, with persistent “Book Now” buttons on every page, and even a date selector on the home page. Dining, events, and guest experiences now have their own branches of the site, each with easy-to-find buttons for anything from making event inquiries to booking a table.
All of these updates and optimizations were made with an eye to website best practices, ensuring that search engines and users alike could discover information smoothly, leading to higher rankings and ultimately more visibility for the real deal — and less for third-parties like Expedia.
Could an investment in your website pay dividends? Let’s talk. Reach us to discuss your hotel website, and learn whether our designers use it to grow your business.
View All Services"*" indicates required fields
