Startup Hotel Website Design
Opening a hotel or B&B? Take direct bookings from the first night. We design and build websites for new hotels, B&Bs and guest houses across the UK, with your rooms, rates, booking engine and policies live before the first guest searches for you, so you are not dependent on the travel sites from day one.
Why a New Hotel Should Not Launch on Booking.com Alone
Whether you have bought a trading hotel, converted a house into a B&B or are opening after a long refurbishment, the travel sites will list you quickly and bring the first guests. Every one of those bookings pays commission, the reviews accumulate on their platform rather than yours, and the guest's details belong to them. Meanwhile the people who hear about you locally and search for your name find a half-finished page or nothing at all, and book through the platform anyway.
A new hotel website does not need to be large. It needs real photographs of the rooms, live booking, honest rates, your policies, directions, the story of the building and the people behind it, and the legal details every business must show. It needs one reason to book direct, however small, and a Google Business Profile set up as a hotel. Ideally it is live before the travel site listings go up, so the first guests who check find both and choose you.
We have designed first websites and logos for new businesses across the UK, from service businesses and e-commerce stores to professional firms, working with founders online from the first call to launch. If you need a logo as well, we design it alongside the site so the sign at the gate, the key cards and the booking confirmation match. Startup hotel websites start from £2,400, and B&Bs and guest houses are usually at the starting price.
What to Have in Place Before Your Website Launches
- Licences, registrations and safety before the first booking. Register as a food business at least 28 days before serving breakfast, apply for a premises licence if you will sell alcohol, and complete a fire risk assessment. In Scotland, B&Bs and guest houses without a premises licence need a short-term let licence first.
- Insurance, your company and your booking terms. Public liability, employers' liability and a commercial buildings and contents policy for paying guests, a decision on company structure, and cancellation, deposit and damage terms written before the booking engine goes live, because they appear at the moment of booking.
- A name, domain and listings you can own. Another hotel with the same name confuses guests and mixes up reviews, so check Companies House, the trade mark register, the travel sites and the domain before the sign is ordered. Our guide to choosing a domain name covers the hotel-specific pitfalls.
- A logo for the gate, the key card and the confirmation email. A hotel brand has to suit the building and read at dusk on the sign, as a thumbnail beside the travel site logos in Google and on a booking confirmation. Our logo design service plans it alongside the site so the two match.
- A Google Business Profile set up as a hotel. Hotel profiles carry amenities, room photographs and a booking link, and can be created ahead of opening with the date. Use the same name, address and phone as the website, and connect your booking engine to Google's free booking links if it supports them.
- Photography once the rooms are dressed. Book a photographer for the day the first rooms are finished, in daylight and at dusk, with the exterior, breakfast and the view, then hold a soft launch for friends and family and ask them for your first Google reviews.
Our startup website checklist covers the general groundwork every new business needs, from the domain name to analytics, and the website design brief template helps you describe the project so we can quote accurately. Not yet trading? Our guide to how to start a bed and breakfast covers the registrations, set-up and first customers in more detail. If you have never worked with a website designer before, our guide to the role explains who does what between design and development.
The Pages a New Hotel Needs on Day One
- Home. Where you are, what kind of stay you offer, a date picker into the booking engine, your room types and one line about the people behind the place, under a photograph that sells it.
- Rooms. A page for each room type with photographs, occupancy, facilities, accessibility and a from rate, with a check-availability button that opens the booking engine on that room.
- Book and offers. The booking engine and an opening offer for guests who book direct, such as breakfast included or a late checkout, so your own site is never simply the same price as the platforms.
- Explore the area. A first local guide with walks, beaches, restaurants and events and the distances from your door, which answers the questions guests ask and gives them a reason to choose your location.
- About. The building, the renovation, who you are and why you opened, told as a story, because new independents are chosen for their owners as much as their rooms.
- Contact, directions and policies. Directions from the motorway and the station, parking and charging, check-in and check-out times, cancellation, pets, children, an accessibility statement and the company details you must display.
Launch with the pages you have real content for and add the rest as the business grows. Our guide to writing website copy for a startup gives you a formula for the home page and every page after it.
Built to Grow With the Business
A first hotel website should be built so that growth means adding pages rather than rebuilding. Once the first season is behind you, the same site can take on:
- Weddings, events and meetings pages with capacities, packages, a gallery and an enquiry form for each space.
- Restaurant and bar pages with menus as real pages and a booking route for non-residents.
- Gift vouchers, dinner packages and spa or activity experiences sold online through the dashboard, with payment taken.
- An admin dashboard so your team edits rooms, rates, offers and the local guide without a designer.
- A returning-guest newsletter with direct-only offers, and seasonal packages that appear and expire on the dates you set.
If you expect to need any of these, tell us at the start and we will plan for them, even if they are not part of the first build. The startup web design page explains how we build on a foundation that extends rather than needing a rebuild.
A Logo and Brand for a New Hotel
A hotel brand sets the price expectation before the rate is seen. The mark, the colours and the typography tell a guest whether to expect a country house, a seaside B&B or a sharp city stay, and they have to agree with the building itself. The logo will appear on the sign at the gate at dusk, on key cards and menus, as a thumbnail beside the travel site logos in Google and at the top of every booking confirmation.
We design the logo alongside the website so the colours, typography and photography style are decided together and carried from the sign to the site, and we supply the files your signmaker and printer need. Read our guide to startup logos and branding before the design starts, and logo design costs in the UK for what a logo should cost and what you should receive.
What a Startup Website Costs and How Long It Takes
A startup hotel website starts from £2,400 for a custom-designed site of up to around ten pages, which covers home, rooms, booking, offers, the area, about and contact. If you want your team to edit rooms, rates, offers and the local guide, that is the website with admin dashboard package from £3,900. Logo design is quoted alongside the site, hosting is from £20 a month, and you pay a 50% deposit, then 50% when the site is complete.
Most websites take three to six weeks from brief to launch once the content is ready, and for a hotel the content that arrives last is the photography, because the rooms have to be finished and dressed first. Tell us your opening date and the date the rooms will be ready, and we will plan the build backwards from both, launching with the booking engine live before the first guest arrives. Our startup website checklist covers the rest.
What New Business Owners Say
"I have worked with quite a few web developers but digitalpod are one of the very best I have ever used. From ideas to visuals and to final coding. The project just effortlessly flowed."
"From the very beginning of our discussions to the end of the project I found Digital Pod to be not only professional but always friendly and willing to resolve any issues."
"Matthew has been wonderful, he has met every deadline, offered much needed advice and, most importantly, has designed a stunning and effective website for me! I wouldn't use anyone else!"
Startup Hotels Website Questions
Should the website launch before the hotel opens?
Yes, as soon as you can take bookings for the opening period. The real website, with rooms, rates, an opening offer and the booking engine live, lets the people who hear about the project locally book directly rather than waiting for the travel sites, and it gives Google time to connect the site to your Business Profile. We can launch with the pages you have and add the restaurant, events and offers as they are ready.
Do we need a booking engine from day one, or can guests just email?
A booking engine, for almost everyone. It shows live availability, takes payment, syncs with the travel sites through a channel manager so you never double-book a room, and lets a guest book at eleven at night without waiting for a reply. A very small B&B can start with a request form and a phone number, but the engine is what makes direct bookings compete with the platforms, and we build the site so one can be dropped in later.
We are a four-room B&B. What do we actually need?
A home page, a page per room, booking, the local area, your story and a directions and policies page, with real photographs and the engine embedded. That is the starting price, and it is enough to compete with the platform listing for the guests who search for you. In Scotland the short-term let licence number has to appear on the site, and everywhere the company details and privacy notice must be there.
How do we win direct bookings when Booking.com has all the reviews?
Give guests one clear reason and remove every doubt. An opening offer or perk for booking direct, photographs better than the listing, policies and parking answered plainly, and a booking journey that stays inside your brand do most of the work. Ask every guest for a Google review from the first night, so the reviews that appear beside your name in search are on a platform you control, and reply to each one.
Can you design the logo and the signage as well as the website?
We design the logo, the colours and the typography alongside the website and supply the files your signmaker, printer and booking engine need, so the sign at the gate, the key cards, the confirmation email and the site all match. The signage itself is made and installed by a local specialist, and we are glad to liaise with them so that what goes up outside matches what guests saw online.
More answers in our FAQ and on the startup web design page. Already trading with a website that needs replacing? See hotels website design for established businesses.
Startup Blog: Guides for New Businesses
Other Sectors We Work With
Launching a different kind of business? We have written startup website guides for these sectors too.
Launch Your Hotel With a Website That Looks Established
Tell us about the business you are starting, when you want to launch and whether you need a logo as well, or book a call to talk it through. We reply personally with a clear, fixed price, and everything runs online wherever you are in the UK.