In the modern times a website for a business have become one of the most reliable source of generating business and communicating with their targeted audience. There was a time when the corporate websites were merely a reflection of a brochure or catalogue. However, things have drastically changed since past decade. Now a day with the rise of internet, smartphone and social media people tend to spend hours in online activities. This has changed the customer behavior as well, now a day’s the customers tend to look up in the internet for a product/service or a business before making a purchase decision. In B2C industries this trend is even more prominent. That is why the websites have transformed from a digital brochure to a powerful marketing and communication tool. Furthermore the financial sector have also evolved to align with the rising online trends which paved the way for the digital and online payment services. The rise of eCommerce and social media also played a crucial role in the advancements of the website.
For a travel and tourism business it is vital to reach out to the targeted audiences, sometimes businesses target domestic audience but mostly it is international audience which generates the more revenue. According to the stats published by the UAE Ministry of Economy the spending of international tourist have reached to staggering AED 143.1 Billion and the number of hotels in the country have reached to 1,089 with the capacity of 180,000 hotel rooms. The successful travel and tourism businesses always have a highly functional website with great design aesthetics. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE the tourism industry is showing consistent growth and huge potential for future. This also attracted more investors and business to the market and raise the competition. High competition also made tourism customers more demanding and set industry standards very high. Which is why businesses are adopting to untraditional marketing methods in order to attract more customers.
The tourism business website is one of the most important part of the success strategy. The web design is the most crucial component of a tourism website. In this blog we will discuss some tourism web design ideas to help our audience in improving their websites and generating more revenue from them.
Important things to focus on for Tourism Website in Dubai
Before we step into the web design part I would also like to highlight some important factors that contributes a lot in success of a tourism website in Dubai, UAE. Most of the businesses already have a website which either they want to change/revamp to improve the conversion rate. However, there are some startups or businesses who want to build a new website from scratch due to rebranding. Here are some important things that every tourism business should consider while designing and developing their brand new tourism website:
- The Domain Name: Most of businesses don’t pay much attention to it, but this is the most important factor in digital marketing and brand image building. The domain name should be simple, easy to remember, catchy, short, keyword-rich, and it should include the brand name.
- Hosting: The hosting is a place where the website data, its files, source code, media libraries and everything is stored. It should be secure, fast and efficient. The hosting should meet the development needs, and it should make your pages load fast because no one like slow websites.
- Platform: The platform is basically referred to as a CMS or content management system and the programing frameworks. The CMS is a software that makes your websites dynamic and allow you to easily manage the content and information of your website. The frameworks will support scalability, customization and future upgrades of the website.
- Integration: A tourism website is incomplete without integration. It has to be integrated with several other software, applications and tools. The integration is a must have feature it allow your website to link with other businesses and services via online.
- SEO Compatibility: The SEO or search engine optimization is a technique to embed certain features and source code in your website which makes it more visible to search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. and help it rank higher in the searches to obtain more website traffic.
Furthermore the responsiveness is another most crucial aspect to mention but now a days almost 99% of the websites are developed with responsiveness so it has become an industry standard in Dubai, UAE.
Web Design Ideas for Tourism Business Website: Color Scheme
The colors are very powerful, for any web design or application the colors setup the first impression, the first impression have huge influence over users’ decision making. Most of the time businesses don’t realize how important colors are, but for any web design the colors plays a vital role. Too bright and shocking colors decrease the readability of the web page and irritates user’s eyes. Which is why users quickly quite such websites. For any corporate web design the standard is to utilize the colors of the brand’s logo along with different shades of the logo colors to enhance the branding. However, a web design is not limited to one or two colors, in fact a web design can have as many colors as you want, however, the best approach is to set one or two primary colors and include all others as secondary colors or supportive colors. The design patterns should also aligned with the logo geometry and should carry the similar look and feel throughout the web design. This will set your initial web design theme hence need more attentions.
Web Design Ideas for Tourism Business Website: Navigation
The navigation is a key to user experience on a tourism business website. Whoever is coming to a tourism website they would want to explore multiple options that are available and they would also be interested in multiple services that you are offering. Obviously putting everything at homepage or a landing page is not possible. Hence the websites are built with multiple internal pages which contains more information that the user might want to acquire. The navigation can enhance or ruin user experience at a website. Therefore it is crucial for a web design to offer an interactive, simple and easy-to-navigate information structure. Ideally all content should be available to the user on 2 to 3 clicks. It is not just the menu that is designed to improve the navigation in fact the web design can offer a variety of other tools that can boost the navigation of a website. In travel and tourism website the user might need several services, booking links, special offers, deals, and much more, which all can be smartly embedded in several design layer and multiple web design techniques can be used to improve the visibility of such links/sections. All this is based on the web design and it help forming an intuitive User Interface (UI).
Web Design Ideas for Tourism Business Website: Highlight Customer Endorsements
Highlighting customer endorsements is a great idea for a travel and tourism brand. People tend to trust on other people’s experience. A good web design place customer reviews, endorsements and their photos/videos on strategically important areas in the web page which help increasing their visibility. Online reviews and client testimonials can also be a great method to gain users’ trust. Displaying user generated content help businesses gain trust of the website visitor and tend to increase online conversions. For any travel and tourism web site it is extremely important to gain visitors’ trust. According to several studies and researches more than 90% of the website visitors don’t convert because the web design failed to gain their trust. The colors, fonts, content, and the trust signals help businesses gain users’ trust. The online reviews and social media endorsements also plays an important role in building a reputable and trust worthy brand image. It is important to include trust markers in the web design and place them strategically at important areas where users can easily view them.
Web Design Ideas for Tourism Business Website: Simplify Customer Journey
The customer journey plays a crucial role in online conversions and lead generation. The primary purpose of the website is to provide relevant information and build trust so the visitors can be satisfied. Without providing them what they need it is impossible to get online leads. The web design can help travel and tourism businesses to simplify the user journey which led to higher conversions. The customer journey starts with acquiring information, the web design, its color scheme, content, navigation and information structure, trust markers and other signs plays crucial role in simplifying the customer journey. Once the user is satisfied with the comprehensive offer details, the next thing that will take them to the next phase is the trust markers, then comes the conversion part. The CTA or call to action button is extremely important it should be placed on strategic locations, its design should be able to distinguish it from the rest of the web design, this will help gaining users’ attention and it will simplify user journey. The visuals and iconography can play a crucial role in delivering useful information more effectively. The web design takes users from the customer journey steps one by one and simplify it which boost conversions and sales.
Web Design Ideas for Tourism Business Website:Content Readability
The primary purpose of any business website is to provide the information the customer is looking for. All of the visitors who will be landing on your tourism website must be seeking some information. For example, if someone wants to visit Dubai from abroad, the first thing they might be needing is the information such as the flights, the hotel bookings, the transportation, local tourist attractions, and so on. All this is usually added by the businesses on their website, however, without the aid of web design these information could remain invisible to an ordinary visitor. The web design help businesses structure all the information in right sequence and focus on them to highlight the value proposition. Highlighting the important information is very important. The web design can offer you a variety of tools such as increasing the font size, improving the contrast between the font color and the backdrop. The hyperlinks help improving internal linking and also used to improve user’s access to the system. That is why the content readability is more important and plays a crucial role on online conversions.
Web Design Ideas for Tourism Business Website: Responsive Web Design
Responsive web design means a web design that can automatically render itself according to the screen size or platform it is being opened from. Usually there are two types of compatibilities one is with the screen size which is more noticeable and the other is with the web browser or device OS from where it is being accessed. A website is a source code that executes when we hit a URL in the web browser, different web browsers and operation systems (OS) behave differently so the webpage must have to be able to identify all those variations and then adjust itself to maintain a consistent user experience. This feature is called responsiveness or mobile compatibility. It is extremely important for any business to offer a consistent user experience across all channels. Now a day’s almost all websites are developed with mobile compatibility features. However, there are tons of different mobile devices with different screen sizes, it is important that your website works perfectly on all major mobile devices and offers a flawless user experience. According to studies 31% of leisure and 53% of business travelers use their phones to make booking. That is why the responsive web design is a must to have feature of your tourism website.
Web Design Ideas for Tourism Business Website: SEO Friendliness
SEO or search engine optimization is one of the most effective technique to boost your digital marketing efforts. The SEO or search engine optimization means making a website more compatible with the search engines. Here in UAE almost 96% of the search market is occupied by Google, while Google is dominating the global search market with a share of slightly more than 91%. Which make Google the benchmark for the field, furthermore all other search engines also work on the same principles that is why we should focus only on Google. The search engines are huge computer with AI (artificial intelligence) based smart algorithms which scan your website and then rate it according to their pre-set criteria. A SEO friendly web design is the one which fully complies with the guidelines of the search engines. It is not as that complicated, since we have already highlighted the key points that make user experience which is a high-value ranking factor in search engines. Furthermore the web design should use only such programing platforms and techniques that support search engines and make everything visible for them to see. A SEO friendly tourism website can generate a huge amount of free organic website traffic from the search engines which can significantly boost your online conversions and sales.
Conclusion
The travel and tourism industry in Dubai and all across UAE is rapidly growing which means the competition is also increasing and the market standards are also rising. This demands from businesses to think out of the box and adopt innovative methods to attract more customers. A tourism business website is the bedrock for the online efforts and digital marketing. In fact these days’ most of the business is done via websites and smartphone applications. Which makes your website even more important. The web design is basically the look and feel of a website including the color schemes, the design elements, pattern, and complete visual/graphical user interface. The web design for a tourism business plays a crucial role in simplifying the customer journey and increasing the online sales. In this blog we have listed some key design ideas that will help you in designing a brand new tourism business website or improving your existing website. RSI Concepts is a leading web design Dubai firm. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want us to help you design or revamp your tourism website, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.
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