CASE STUDY
StayCity Aparthotels
The StayCity group increased direct bookings by 71% with the P3 booking engine.
The StayCity group increased direct bookings by 71% with the P3 booking engine.
StayCity is one of Europe’s leading Aparthotel groups that operates around 3,000 aparthotels in 12 major European cities including Berlin, London, Paris, Dublin and Edinburgh. The group needed a superior booking engine to boost direct bookings and increase conversion rate.
P3 helped StayCity to design and build an eCommerce that is better or as good as any OTA to encourage users to always choose their own brand website to book their stay. P3 and StayCity started to work together in 2018. Our flexibility in delivering a customised booking engine and our OPERA PMS expertise were the key reasons to establish this relationship.
The new booking engine project began by reviewing StayCity's current online presence. We came across a few points of friction on their booking engine that made the process of booking an apartment complicated for bookers. We also identified that their conversion rate was significantly lower than industry standards.
StayCity needed a new booking engine tailored to the process of booking an aparthotel, ensuring that its design and development went through a 4-stage process. This process included reviewing their current booking engine, proposing a new design and booking engine flow, development, and finally user testing with real case customers to make sure that all the required information was easily available for the user.
P3 firstly analysed the StayCity’s current booking engine. We identified what was working and what wasn’t by conducting research with real case users. The most important thing that we noticed from the study was that, when people book aparthotels, they have different questions and needs compared to when they book a hotel room.
We created a new tailored design specific for users booking aparthotels rather than hotel rooms which we had discovered in the usability review had subtle differences. We presented the new version to the client explaining who welcomed the new changes.
We proposed to conduct a follow-up usability study to ensure that the design was effectively addressing the problems identified in our initial report. The second round of user testing on the new design was crucial to make sure that no new friction points were being introduced in the new design.
The usability test was conducted with real case users and we studied up to 10 people over a 2 day period and asked them to follow a set scenario as if they were making a real life booking. The objective was to identify any issues that needed to be changed in the new booking engine design before the project went into development.
We also wanted to ensure that the new elements incorporated in the design had the desired effect of making the experience of booking an aparthotel easier and more pleasant for the user.
After the changes and the customer’s approval, we developed and launched StayCity’s new booking engine. Part of the project was to integrate a loyalty program named ‘Stay Sweet’ within their new booking engine. However, we firstly launched the booking platform without the loyalty program to check its performance against the old booking engine on a like-for-like basis.
Once the client was satisfied that the new booking engine was outperforming the old one, the loyalty software module was pushed live.
StayCity's new booking engine now better reflects their branding and offers a seamless shopping experience for guests booking aparthotels. We kept in mind their customer base, visual identity and user experience strategies when designing their customised eCommerce platform.
These are the 6 main features that we included in StayCity's new booking engine that helped them increase direct bookings by 71%.
As we’ve noticed that the process of booking aparthotels is different than booking hotel rooms, we identified the importance of including more content about each apartment. We added information such as the number of people that sleep in it, floor area, entertainment options, and facilities in the kitchen, bathroom and living room. We also included beautiful high-quality images to best illustrate the features of the apartment.
We optimised the booking engine pages to be user-friendly and to deliver a better user experience. We designed easy-to-read icons about the apartment and added bullet points to make the content clearer and more concise. Whitespace was added to separate the information and to facilitate the reading for the user.
The Free Cancellation and "Pay Nothing Now" information were highlighted throughout the booking process to reinforce that users will pay on arrival and can cancel for free up to 24h before their check-in date. These are effective indicators that users will not be charged now and are making the right choice by booking directly at the hotel’s website.
We improved the call-to-action buttons with words that explain what will happen after the user clicks on it, for example 'Continue to last step'. This enhances the user experience and makes users confident of their actions through the booking process.
Users have a separate and dedicated page within their booking journey to customise their stay. This page has been improved with a clearer and more engaging design. They can customise their stay by selecting breakfast per day, choosing the type of bed they need based on the number of guests in their booking.
The final step of the booking process is the payment page, and it was re-designed to simplify the check-out procedure. The guest details and the credit card information are in one page on the final step. This page was designed to have a minimum number of fields that the user has to fill in order to complete their transaction. The fields have in line error handling to help reduce on submission errors.
Since the launch of StayCity's new booking engine, we’ve been seeing an uplift in direct bookings and conversion rate across their properties, including Berlin, London, Paris and Dublin.
In a year on year comparison, there has been an increase of:
44% in website users.
19% in conversion rate.
71% in overall direct bookings.
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