About Small Luxury Hotels of the World
Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH) is a collection of 620 independent luxury hotels located in over 90 countries, all aimed at the independently minded traveller. Every hotel is visited, verified and vetted, and with just 50 rooms on average, each property offers secluded, discrete options with the highest standards of luxury and guest wellbeing.
SLH provides a compelling alternative brand to the large chain hotels and offers marketing, branding and booking services for its member hotels.
- 3chillies was engaged to transform an underperforming website
- A continuous, iterative, programme of improvements and integrations
- New booking engine, loyalty programme and secure agent log-in
- Eye-catching new destination pages
- Increase in conversions from 0.4% to 1.2% in 2023
- Record year for SLH.com revenue
The challenge
The digital footprint for a luxury travel brand is critical, enabling travellers to search for details of each hotel, view beautiful pictures of each property, and make a reservation in a quick and frictionless way. The quality of a travel website makes a significant difference to the conversion rate for guest bookings.
SLH’s existing website was somewhat misaligned with the SLH brand. It did not offer either the range of features or the effortless reservation experience that visitors expected. Subsequently, travellers were struggling to complete bookings, meaning that SLH and its community of hotels were missing out on potential revenue. The overall conversion rate was 0.4%, a figure that SLH wanted to raise.
In 2021 the SLH team approached 3chillies intending to transform their website into a world-class booking experience that would properly reflect the quality and spirit of the SLH brand and its exceptional hotels, and ultimately raise the conversion rate.
Our work
After onboarding SLH from their existing digital supplier and carrying out a thorough site audit, we partnered with SLH on an ambitious and far-reaching programme of digital change intending to leapfrog the website and booking experience of SLH’s competitors.
Since that time, we have worked on several improvements to the site including new content areas and seamless integrations with back-end travel and booking systems. Drawing on our technical expertise and knowledge, we ensured we delivered a smooth and high-performing site that puts the hotels and destinations centre stage and enables visitors to book with ease.
The results
The result is a slick and stylish website which is powered by a completely new online booking engine. Travel Agents can also log in to the site via the Travel Trade Hub. We also built APIs for a future project to revamp SLH’s mobile app so it could integrate with the SLH website.
New destination pages provide an eye-catching overview of each boutique hotel and resort, allowing guests to view critical information and images of rooms, views from the hotel and more. The website also incorporates a new loyalty programme with a secure log-in.
As a result of 3chillies work, 2023 turned out to be the most successful year for SLH.com to date. With more stock available, an uptick in bookings and a large increase in the number of agents using the Travel Trade Hub, the new website experience has helped to deliver an overall increase in departure revenue for SLH and its properties.
Most importantly, the conversion rate on the website has leapt from 0.4% to 1.2%, making a tangible difference to SLH.
The future
We’re proud to be continuing our partnership with SLH, improving the website through a series of smaller, iterative changes, and helping deliver a new mobile app to match the website experience.
Unlimited possibilities
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