Important note: This page talks about hotel website builders, and gives you thorough information on the same. If you are interested in getting detailed information of restaurant website builders instead, click here.
What is a website builder?
It is the software that lets you build websites without coding. A comprehensive online system that consists of a wide range of pre-defined styles and templates, enabling you to build a website from scratch.
This software makes it easy for you to create and maintain your website without hiring a designer, developer or agency.
The common website builder caters to almost all sizes and types of businesses. However, these days you can also find website builders specific to your industry.
Here, we will make you familiar with the in and out of the hospitality website builder.
The requirements and audience of different industries varies from each other. Therefore, the hospitality website builder that caters to accommodation providers and F&B businesses has all the features that benefits you in the right way.
You will find two types of hotel website builders:
Offline Website Builders
Offline website builders are software programs that you download and install on your computer. You have to build your website offline, save your files on your computer, and when your website is ready, all you need to do is upload all your files to a web host.
A very few hospitality businesses prefer an offline website builder. Example of an offline website builder is RapidWeaver.
Online Website Builders
As explained above, online website builders are web-based. All you need is a web browser (i.e. Chrome, Firefox or Internet Explorer) and an internet connection. With online website builders, you can access its backend from anywhere at any time.
Most accommodation and F&B businesses prefer online website builders, owing to added benefits like hosting services, dedicated support, and more.
Example of an online website builder: eZee Panorama
In this digital age, most businesses think they are doing fine without having a website (Especially small to mid-sized hotels and restaurants.) Little do they know that these days, if you do not have your business online, you are literally out of business.
Here are the reasons that solidifies the importance of website:
Why should every hospitality business have a brand website?
Certainly, there are a plethora of other businesses (basically, your competitors), offering the same services as yours. Amid this tight competition, a well built website plays an important role in building your brand. Your brand website communicates the right information about your business to your consumers, clearly and concisely.
As a matter of fact,
That’s 25.92 million people searching for businesses online.
Apart from the statistics, a website:
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1. Promotes your business 24*7
Your brand website is your greatest marketing asset. There are 3.5 billion searches on Google per day, and travelers are constantly searching for best hotels or places to dine in. A website ensures that your business appears in those results.
It is available 24/7/365 even when you’re not and advocates your business constantly. round the clock. It is the first point of contact for your business.
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2. Strengthens your company’s credibility
According to TripAdvisor, 52% of users would not book a hotel with no website. The ratio is not less for the F&B businesses. For hospitality businesses, having a website is a matter of trust for your audience. It is an opportunity to make the best first impression and ensure them that you’re an actual business. In absence of your website, your guests may question your legitimacy as a brand.
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3. Controls the narrative of your brand
While reviews are a decisive factor for your audience, it is difficult to control what people say about you. However, you can definitely improve your brand perception by writing your own story on the website. It establishes who you are, what you represent, and what you stand for. It can be incredibly challenging to do this, without having your own website. Because, it is the only source, where your audience can't easily find quality and reliable information about your property.
In a nutshell, your guests prefer a brand they can trust, and the website is the foundation of developing that confidence.
With these facts, it is ESSENTIAL for each and every accommodation provider, as well as F&B businesses to have their brand website. When you want to create your website, there are several options available.
Moving ahead, let us understand
Different ways to create hotel website
There are many ways available for hospitality businesses to create their website. All the different methods have their own pros and cons. Besides, properties based on their size and type choose the best options to get their website done. Below mentioned are some of the most popular options:
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1. Website builders
As discussed earlier, website builders are pre-designed software that provide a comprehensive platform to design your website. A few examples of website builders are wix.com, squarespace.com, and weebly.com.
Pros- Anyone with zero to no technical knowledge can create and manage his websites.
- You have the freedom to modify your website as and when you want.
- You get additional features like hosting, SSL, a wide range of templates, multi-language support and more.
Cons- You need to have a basic knowledge of responsiveness, SEO factors, and resizing of images.
- Some hotel website builders do not reflect self-made changes well.
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2. Content Management System (CMS)
A CMS is a content management system comprising standard templates where the coding on the back end is already done, and you can easily create your website.
Pros- These templates are mostly “fill in the blanks. So all you have to do is manage the content within the system.
- Since you can do the changes on your own, it savea a lot of your time and efforts.
Cons- You must learn the CMS.
- There are limitations on design.
- The site becomes unusable during upgrades.
- Security threats always prevail.
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3. Website development agency or Freelance website developers
If you want to get your website created by an agency or freelance developers, then you need to find one who is fairly aware of your domain, requirements and target audience. You also need to keep in mind that you are paying only for website design.
Pros- In most cases, you get a completely unique website.
- Since web designers are professionals, they know important factors like aspect ratio, colour combinations, user experience, and navigation.
Cons- You don't have ownership of your website.
- For every minor to major change, you have to depend on your agency or developer.
- Consistent communication with them for every single change.
- It is NOT pocket-friendly. The process of website creation is followed by constant updates and further maintenance. And every single process is of high cost.
Based on the type, size and different hospitality businesses prefer the options that suit them the best.
On top of that, it is well established that a majority of hospitality businesses are running 24x7.
While you already have plenty of things on your table, managing the website takes a toll on you.
With the passing time, a large number of businesses are choosing the smartest and affordable option - hotel website builder.
Moving ahead, let’s understand,
What are the benefits of the hotel website builder?
The hotel website builder has streamlined the daunting task of managing the website to a great extent. You can have a website up and running in no time. Additionally,
You don't require any technical skills
Almost all website builders provide drag-and-drop functionalities. Whether it is about changing your website content or adding an entire new page, you can do all of it by yourself. In addition, ensuring the responsiveness is a no-brainer. Also, Integrating third-party apps gets simple with plugins or copy-pasting embed codes.
You have control over the look and feel
When you create hotel website yourself, you get to choose the overall look and feel. With a designer, you can describe what you have in mind and hope for the best, but at the end of the day you could end up with something that doesn’t really match what you wanted.
A website builder provide you the platform to create your website in your own way. So, you can choose the layout, colors, and style of the website all yourself.
You still have a lot of flexibility and options
You don’t want your website to look like everybody else’s. You need to have a unique website that represents your hospitality business in the best light.
In addition to choosing from a number of starter templates, you can also decide on:
- Color options
- Fonts
- Backgrounds
- Formatting
- The placement of different elements the page
You can add a variety of functional elements via plugins like video, gallery, map, blog, analytics, forms, social share buttons and other elements easily.
Although the hotel website templates are predesigned, you can create a unique design to coordinate with your brand.
You get a professionally designed website
Website builders constantly add new templates to their pool of professionally designed layouts, that you can use for free. You have access to plenty of themes and templates that suit your hospitality business. You can select the theme and template that suits your property the best.
Your time and efforts are saved
If you don't have a website builder, you need to hire a full-time developer to make changes to your website.
In case, if you have got your website built from a web development agency, you have to contact them. In either situation, the changes will take a considerable time. And in the due course, you have to constantly take follow ups and overall it could be a hectic process.
Moving on, let us guide you through,
How does hotel website builder work?
The hospitality website builders work in the following fashion:
1. Select a suitable template
If you are an accommodation provider, either you could be a full-fledged hotel, a group of hotels, a B&B, or a vacation rental. Similarly, if you are a F&B business, you could either be a fine-dine restaurant, a bar, a cafe or a food truck. Based on your business requirements, the first step is to choose a template that showcases the best of your business and suits your requirements.
Website builders come with a library of website templates with built-in elements and content. You can modify the templates by editing their elements effortlessly.
You can rearrange the website templates by dragging and dropping.
2. Select your theme
The hotel website templates are created with a generic theme.
After you have selected suitable templates, you can select themes out of available options. You can also customize the existing themes to match them as per your brand.
The website builders provide you with a wide range of options to modify, such as - font styles, colours, backgrounds, and more.
3. Add your content and photos
After selecting the template and its theme, the next step is to add your property’s visuals, viz - photos, videos, menus, and other details.
4. Add more elements, widgets and pages
When you have added visuals and overall content of the website, a basic structure is ready.
Now is the time to add other elements, like contact forms and social sharing buttons (ie. Facebook Like, Twitter Tweet, Pinterest Pin and more), more pages like blogs, things to do near your property, your company’s story, and more.
In short, in this step, you have to include A-Z details to conclude the design of your website.
Basically, include everything that will complete your website.
5. Preview and publish your website
In this last and final step, all you have to do is verify each and every minuscule detail of your website; and then publish.
Before you publish your website, you should review the content alignment, uniformity of your logo, visuals quality (whether or not they are being compressed), navigation among different pages, call-to-actions (CTAs) and all the other elements.
After inspecting your website, you have to configure your domain, hosting, and click on the publish button.
Well, your website gets up and running in these 5 simple steps.
Depending on the different hotel website creator, the steps may vary; however they are more or less similar as mentioned above.
Furthermore, let us educate you on:
Key Features of a Website Builder for Hotels and Restaurants
For the businesses running round the clock, a website builder should simplify the things for you, instead of complicating. With that being the reason, it is very important for you to know the key features of website builders for hotels.
Templates and themes
Website builders provide you with an extensive range of predefined templates in different categories. Each hotel website templates can be customizable to match it as per your hospitality brand.
User-friendly interface
The website creator for hotels and restaurants make it easy to create a fully-functional website on your own. With almost no learning required, you can finish creating your website in no time.
Free hosting and SSL
Website builder lifts you from the burden of managing technical aspects of your website. It provides you with free hosting and SSL certificate, thereby taking the utmost care of your brand website.
Responsive website
You get fully responsive web templates. That means the creative website is fluid enough to work perfectly fine in any size and types of devices.
Multi language support
With the multi language support, your website gets translated into N number of languages. Your visitors from different regions can access your website in their preferred language.
Plug & play widgets
Website creators offer much more than the website creation. You get a collection of widgets to keep your visitors informed about ongoing deals, promotions, number of bookings and many other details.
Form Builders
You can create a wide range of forms for submitting a complaint, questions, or compliments, acquiring reservations, signups or for any reason; with the inbuilt form builder tools.
Image Galleries
Images are a key part of a website for the hotels and restaurants. The real photos and visuals convince your audience to choose you over your competitors. With website builder, you can easily upload, resize, crop images. You can embed videos on different pages too.
On top of that, you can also group images together, rearrange them in gallery, to attract your guests. Some of the website builders offer you a variety of layouts for visual galleries; such as list, grid or a lightbox.
These are a few must-have features of a hospitality website builder. Now, that you are aware of the in and out of all features, let us give you all the details on:
Integration of website builders for hotel and restaurant
The website builder offers several integrations to help hotels and restaurants make the most of their website. Below mentioned are common integrations that most of them provide:
Booking engine integration
A booking engine is a software that allows your visitors to book rooms directly from your hotel’s website. It is the most important integration for accommodation providers. It enables you to drive bookings from Facebook, Google Hotel Ads, TripAdvisor, and more.
Benefits:
- Drives more direct bookings and orders from your website at ZERO commission
- Saves your OTA commissions
- Minimizes the dependency on multiple OTAs
- Increases your brand value
Payment gateways
A payment gateway is a third-party service provider that authorizes credit card or direct payment processing for your property. Integrating a payment gateway with your website lets you take deposits via credit/debit card at the time of booking or while making a reservation at your restaurant.
Benefits:
- Directly collect payments from the booking engine
- Prevent fraudulent use of the card
- Ensure proper cash flow
- Secure bookings/reservations and lesser no-shows
Restaurant POS system
A restaurant POS is a software that streamline A-Z operations of your restaurant such as managing tables, menu management, order management; basically, it takes control of all activities. This is an essential integration for F&B businesses. With this integration, you can directly take the orders from your website and process them in the POS.
Benefits:
- Eliminates all the manual work to keep a track of orders
- Keep all the different orders in sync
- Simplifies the order management for you
Email and SMS Gateways
Most of the website builders offer the Email, SMS and Whatsapp Integration with your website. With this integration, you can easily send pre-arrival, during-stay, post departure, promotional, emails and SMS right from your website. In addition to this, you can also tell them about your upcoming or ongoing deals and offers. This integration is literally very important for guest engagement.
Benefits:
- You can welcome more repeated guests
- You can keep in touch with your guests personally
- You can promote your hotel without any hassles
Google Maps Integration
With this integration, you can include the direction map of your property’s or restaurants’ exact location on your website.
Benefits:
- Your guests can find you easily
- Saves your efforts in guiding the guests
- Helps you in SEO too
So, these are some of the major integrations that come along with a hospitality website builder.
Now, that you know the benefits, must-have features, integrations, you must be all set to buy the hotel website builder for your business.
Before you get started, let us share some tips and tricks on
How to choose the best website builder for your hotel?
There are a plethora of website builders available in the market for hotels as well as restaurants. Most of them must be fueled with amazing features that guarantee a better website.
However, the key factor should be the ease of use at a pocket-friendly price. You have to take care that the website builder vendor doesn't confuse you with all complicated features.
Therefore here are a few questions to ask to while buying a website builder:
- How quick will my website be published?
- How many days will it take to build a hotel website?
- On which platform, will you build my website?
- Will I be able to change the content on my site or will I need to hire a developer to do so?
- Would I be able to preview the look of my website, before it gets published?
- How many hotel website templates do you provide?
- Will you limit my website design with the adamant templates, or will I be able to customize them as per my brand?
- Will the created website be completely responsive and fast-loading?
- Which integrations are possible with the website builder?
- Does your website builder support different browser types, web and mobile operating systems and server environments?
- Do you provide FREE hosting?
- Will the created website be secured?
- What types of support options do you provide?
This is a set of a few questions that you must ask to your website builder provider. Now you may want to know,
So, these were a few questions that you should ask before selecting the website builder for your hotel or restaurant.
Moving ahead, let us explain to you,
How much does a website builder cost?
Amid all other ways of creating a website, the most cost-effective way is with the help of website builder.
The price range of the website builder varies depending on the features, modules, offerings and support provided by the vendor.
On an average, the website builder for hotels and restaurants cost around 20 to 30$.
Get a stunning website that showcases the best of your business
Restaurant Website Builder
Around 93% of people view menus online before dining out. This clearly states it’s vital to have a website for your F&B business to succeed and beat the competition.
Generally, F&B business owners find it challenging to create and maintain a website. However, with the introduction of restaurant website creators, maintaining a website has become easiest as ever.
Following are a few things that you must look out for in a restaurant website builder:
Templates and themes
The restaurant website maker should provide you with a wide variety of templates that cater to different types of businesses. For instance, they must have templates for fine-dine restaurants, bars, cafes, coffee-shops, chain restaurants, and every type of F&B business.
It is a must-have feature, because the layout will include many of the features you’ll need and it will be easier to set up than a general theme.
Menu options
The food is the heart of your restaurant! Therefore, you need to see how many options the restaurant website builder is offering to showcase your menu. Most of the restaurants choose to add a menu on their website as a JPEG or a PDF but this is a huge hassle for customers and usually doesn’t look great either. Therefore you should go for a template that has responsive design for proper mobile viewing, as well as the ability to separate the menu into categories.
Online order-taking facility
Lastly, the restaurant website builder should get a website that is integrated with online order management or restaurant POS software. The integrations enables your customers to go through your menus, combos, special offers, and order directly from your website. It is the most important convenience that they look out for on your website.
Table-Reservation Management
Ensure that the restaurant website builder should let you create an online reservation form. Instead of having to answer phone calls all day or go through emails, an online reservation form does all the work for you. This enables your customers to book their table directly from your website.
To sum up, your website needs to make a great first impression because it is the first thing customers will see before they step in your restaurant.
With the right website builder, you can create restaurant website that will impress your patrons just as much as your food.
Multi language support
With the multi language support, your website gets translated into N number of languages. Your visitors from different regions can access your website in their preferred language.
Plug & play widgets
Website creators offer much more than the website creation. You get a collection of widgets to keep your visitors informed about ongoing deals, promotions, number of bookings and many other details.
Form Builders
You can create a wide range of forms for submitting a complaint, questions, or compliments, acquiring reservations, signups or for any reason; with the inbuilt form builder tools.
Image Galleries
Images are a key part of a website for the hotels and restaurants. The real photos and visuals convince your audience to choose you over your competitors. With website builder, you can easily upload, resize, crop images. You can embed videos on different pages too.