At the 61st annual Choice Hotels International Convention, which took place earlier this month at Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, the company announced a number of new initiatives, including updated brand positioning and a push to gain greater market share. One of its top initiatives, which ties in with the company’s new branding, is the redesigned Choice Hotels website—ChoiceHotels.com. The site has been updated to not only manage the increased traffic tied to Choice’s new marketing initiatives, but also to be one of the most efficient online booking engines in the lodging industry.
According to Karmela Gaffney, vice president of digital commerce at Choice Hotels, 7 out of 10 Americans own a smartphone, and in 2015, ownership of tablets is set to outpace ownership of PCs for the first time. Developed over the past year with a more than $50 million budget, the new Choice website has been optimized for use on all digital platforms and is intuitive and adaptable to the needs of Choice Hotels guests. The new site can be accessed in eight languages to book hotels in 30 countries.
Choice tested more than 375 designs and devoted more than 45,000 hours of manpower to the development of the site before approving the final design. “If we only had one person working on the site, that would equate to 22 years of working, and that’s without taking a vacation,” Gaffney said.
The updated ChoiceHotels.com caters to travelers who want to know exactly what they’re getting when they book. Part of that process includes updating the photography for every property in the Choice roster from 10 to 15 photos to 30 to 40 high-resolution images. “To date, we have shot 1,400 properties and have a very aggressive timeline in place. We will complete over 5,000 hotels by next March,” Gaffney said. She added that not only will the website include static photos, but Choice also is in the process of shooting custom virtual tours of all room types and public spaces. “We’re shooting Google Business View virtual tours—that’s the exclusive Google 360 degree experience that will give [Choice] properties additional exposure directly within Google,” she said. This tactic also helps boost ChoiceHotels.com to the top of Google’s organic search results when potential guests use the search engine to find a hotel.
Beyond the visual design of the site, Choice’s digital presence has been retooled to make the user experience much easier, saving information so guests don’t have re-enter their data every time they use the site. “Personalization is an aspect that will only be come more important in the future, and we are getting out ahead of it,” Gaffney said.
Choice has also launched a mobile app that uses push notifications to ensure guests complete the bookings they begin. “Say I’d been looking for a hotel for tonight and got distracted by something else. A few hours later, the app remembers that I was interested in a hotel today and pushes me a reminder to ask if I still need a room,” Gaffney explained.
The redesigned ChoiceHotels.com has been optimized to attract—and retain—new customers across all platforms. And the website development team isn’t stopping. “We’re going to keep testing and improving every single day,” Gaffney said. “In 2015, this digital presence is really going to drive business to [Choice] hotel[s]. And we make it easy for people to book here.”
An incomplete site that does not fully work and corrupts data. Choice web technical support verified that they are having issues and continue to have them as of today. Manage reservations does not work in EDGE browser with Windows 10 Pro. Manage reservations still does not show any reservation or cancellation information. Technical support and web support both admitted they cannot get data back. Absolutely horrible project planning. No failback, very poor design. Here is an example: Had 2 rooms booked, then cancelled. Choice system update, added 3rd room then cancelled it and lost other cancellation for the two rooms in Red Lodge, MT. Each one says other is at fault. I can get stuck for cancelled nights. Upgrade my foot.
“and in 2015, ownership of tablets is set to outpace ownership of PCs for the first time.” So, crossing the 50% threshold means that it needs to be redesigned to be completely unusable in PCs, the primary platform used in business offices?
“The redesigned ChoiceHotels.com has been optimized to attract—and retain—new customers across all platforms.”
The redesigned website is the reason I’m no longer using choice hotels. I was a Diamond member, now i’m going to be a non-member. They took functionality out of the website then removed the ability to use the old website. So terrible.
The usability of the new site is very poor. I have been either a Diamond or Platinum member for several years and this new (useless) website is the reason I am looking for another hotel chain. One example I am dealing with now is that I can no longer view my ‘portfolio’ and see COMPLETE details of my previous stays. In the past I could view and save a copy of my receipt and attach that to an expense report. Now, I have to keep up with the receipt, scan it and attach to my expense reports. I am not always near a scanner, so sometimes I have to wait 3-4 weeks to get reimbursed for my travel expenses. This is just one of several issues I have.