Smiths Hotel

Case Study

Summary

Smith’s Hotel is a world-renowned venue for hosting weddings in the famous Scottish town of Gretna Green. They not only offer superb 4-star accommodation, excellent two AA rosette dining and an onsite beauty salon, but are also highly regarded as one of the very best wedding reception venues in Scotland.

They have over 50 bedrooms designed to offer the best night’s sleep with a flexible range of Deluxe Doubles, Family Rooms, Balcony Rooms, Luxury Suites and Cottage-style-suites.

They are a multi-awarded hotel since their opening in 2006 including ‘Wedding Hotel of the Year’ & ‘Best Wedding Planner’.

Smith’s Hotel also offers the perfect venue for business, as its location close to the border of Scotland and England makes it a convenient meeting point in the middle for conference delegates from the major cities of Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

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Our Roles

Web & Mobile Development

The Challenge

The key elements for this site were that it had to have an international feel, was easy to navigate for all age groups and would work on multiple platforms.

The main challenge included the integration of the booking system which we wanted to make look like an integral part of the website, whilst having this linked to their live database of room availability with the 3rd party integration.

The main objective was presenting visuals and images of the accommodation and venue as quickly as possible, essentially to create a high impact website so that visitors immediately got a feel for the hotel and drove them to book.

Insights

Because a better customer experience means a better conversion rate, customisation is crucial. With over 40% of Internet users aiming to personalize their travel experiences, you must engage them with the right information, but keeping it simple and to the point.

Providing quick and thoughtful answers that turn into inspiration. Nearly two-thirds of travellers use social media to plan trips and nearly half consult user reviews and recommendations. For these reasons, the reimagined smithsgretnagreen.com would be built upon three key pillars.

Our Solution

The site was built on our Redback platform and this give us so much flexibility compared to several platforms on the market.

From a design perspective, there isn’t much we can’t achieve and based around the brief, we have definitely achieved the goals that were set out.

We integrated the booking system which works well within the website, keeping the audience engaged as they go through the booking process.

The site is built on a responsive grid so this allows the website to be viewed on any device. We paid close attention to the types of traffic the previous site received and what devices were used to visit. Key elements are positioned with high importance and anything not required is hidden on tablets and mobile.

Results

The website traffic has increased year on year and the Gretna Green Group have grown immensely taking on two further hotels in the area and monopolising the area so that any visitor coming to Gretna will likely stay in one of their hotels.

Since 2014 the increase in traffic has been almost 500% up to over 1,000,000 sessions a year with a bounce rate reduction of 32%

Stats

500%

increase in traffic

475%

increase in unique visitors

32%

reduction in bounce rate

What Our Client Says

We have worked with Adeo since 2014 when we commissioned them to build the new website for our 4*hotel, Smiths at Gretna Green. During that time we have found them to be knowledgeable, forward looking, fast and efficient in any of the tasks we have asked them. They react to any ideas or problems we have quickly and are proactive with ideas themselves through regular meetings with us. A good Company to work with.