Website Design for Tourism and Hospitality Businesses: A Complete Guide
Tourism is one of the most competitive sectors to market a business in online. Whether you're running a holiday cottage, a touring park, a boat charter, a café, or an activity business on the Yorkshire Coast, the people you're trying to reach are usually searching from hundreds of miles away, comparing you against dozens of similar options, and making decisions largely based on what they find online.
I've been designing websites for tourism and hospitality businesses for years — working with holiday parks, letting agencies, boat charters, and visitor attractions, many of them right here on our stretch of the North Yorkshire coast. Here's what I've learned about what actually works.
First impressions matter more than anywhere else
In most sectors, a visitor to your website will give you a few seconds before deciding whether to stay or leave. In tourism and hospitality, that window is even shorter — and the stakes are higher, because your competitor is one click away.
Photography is the single most important investment most tourism businesses can make. Great images of your accommodation, your location, your views, or your experience do more work than any amount of clever copywriting. If your current website is running on old, poorly-lit, or low-resolution photos, that's the first thing to fix — before anything else.
Video is increasingly powerful too. I've seen short drone footage or a simple walkthrough video transform the conversion rate of a holiday property website almost overnight.
Your website needs to be found before it can do any of this
None of the above matters if potential guests can't find you in the first place. Tourism businesses face a particular SEO challenge: the searches people use to find you are often very specific — "dog-friendly cottages Robin Hood's Bay," "sea fishing trips Whitby," "glamping North York Moors" — and you're competing against large aggregator platforms like Airbnb, Booking.com, and holiday cottage directories that have enormous authority with search engines.
That doesn't mean you can't compete — but it does mean you need to be strategic. Some approaches that work well:
Target long-tail, specific searches. "Holiday cottages Whitby with sea views" is a more achievable target than "holiday cottages Yorkshire," and the people searching it are further along in their decision-making. They know what they want.
Build content around your location. Blog posts and guides about things to do near your property, local walks, restaurants, events — all of this gives search engines more reasons to show your website to people researching a trip to your area. It also genuinely helps your guests, which is the right reason to do it.
Get your Google Business Profile right. For local tourism businesses, your Google Business Profile is often the first thing a potential guest sees. It needs accurate information, great photos, and ideally a steady stream of positive reviews.
Don't compete directly with the aggregators for generic terms. Focus your SEO energy on what makes you unique and specific rather than trying to outrank Booking.com for "holiday accommodation Yorkshire." You won't win that fight — but you can win smaller, more specific ones.
Booking systems: commission-free is worth the investment
One of the biggest ongoing costs for many tourism businesses is the commission paid to aggregator platforms. Every booking that comes through your own website instead of Airbnb or a cottage directory is a booking you keep the full value of.
A well-designed, easy-to-use booking system on your own website — with real-time availability, online payment, and automatic confirmation emails — can meaningfully shift the balance over time. I've built commission-free booking systems for several clients, and the long-term savings comfortably justify the initial investment.
Ladycross Lodge & Touring Park, one of my recent projects, now sees marketing emails to their mailing list achieve over 70% open rates and 30% click-through rates — because they've built a direct relationship with guests rather than relying entirely on third-party platforms. That kind of audience is enormously valuable.
Trust signals matter enormously
A potential guest is considering spending several hundred or several thousand pounds based largely on what they see on your website. Anything that reduces their uncertainty and builds confidence is valuable.
This includes: guest reviews and testimonials (ideally with photos), industry accreditations and awards, clear and honest descriptions of what's included, transparent pricing with no hidden extras, and a clear, easy-to-find cancellation policy. The businesses that communicate all of this clearly tend to convert better, even when they're not the cheapest option.
Don't neglect email
If you have returning guests — and most good tourism businesses do — email is your most powerful marketing tool. A mailing list of people who've already stayed with you and enjoyed it is an asset that no algorithm can take away. Regular, well-designed emails with seasonal offers, availability updates, and local news will bring guests back year after year.
I set up and manage email marketing for several tourism clients using Brevo, and the engagement rates I see from warm, well-managed lists consistently outperform anything achievable through social media.
If you run a tourism or hospitality business and you're not happy with how your website is performing, I'd love to take a look and have a conversation. I know this corner of the Yorkshire coast well, and I've helped a number of businesses here make the most of what they have online.