The 8 key performance indicators (KPI) of a successful hotel website

Your hotel website is the core element of your hotel’s online visibility. It is the pillar of your digital marketing strategy that allows you to distribute your hotel directly. 

An analysis of the visitors’ behavior on your hotel website enables you to identify the strong and weak points of the latter in order to optimize your online acquisition strategy. 

Having a website is good but following its performance is better: your website is alive, it must evolve according to your hotel activity. It is a question of optimizing it regularly in order to meet the current technical requirements (Google rules, GDPR, organic referencing, etc.) as well as the expectations of Internet users in order to convert them into customers.

What is a KPI?

KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are figures that allow you to measure the effectiveness of your website, a marketing campaign, etc. They also help you to make the necessary adjustments to reach the online goals you have set beforehand. 

You will find some of these KPIs in your Google Analytics account. KPIs are monitored on a daily basis and compiled in detailed dashboards, called reports.

The KPIs to analyze depend above all on the goals you have set for yourself, as well as on the digital marketing strategy you want to implement. To help you get started, here are 8 KPIs to monitor the performance of your hotel website.

KPIs to measure and analyze your web traffic

Number of sessions on the website

The number of visitors to your hotel’s website reflects its traffic and popularity. No traffic, no bookings. This information allows you to deduce the share of recurring visitors and to identify if visitors are seduced by your website. You will also be able to know if you are attracting new customers.

For Google Analytics, a session is the period during which a user is active on your website. By default, if a user is inactive for at least 30 minutes, any future activity is attributed to a new session. Users who leave your website and come back within 30 minutes are part of the same session.

Engagement rate or bounce rate

The bounce rate is a key indicator to understand the behavior of a user on your website. This percentage tells you how many visitors have left your hotel’s website only after arriving (or not) on your website without interacting with it!

The reasons for a high bounce rate are often recurrent: 

• The loading time is too slow: visitors leave a website if the loading time is too long. 
• The website is not optimized for mobile browsing: 65% of traffic is generated via mobile in 2022. 
• A website that is not HTTPS secure.
• An unqualified traffic  

If your bounce rate is high, it’s worth looking into the cause and conducting a more in-depth analysis of your hotel’s website. You will then be able to better understand your situation and adapt your digital strategy to improve your website’s performance.

In Google Analytics 4, you can find this information by going to Reports > Demographics > Demographics Overview.

KPIs to measure your bookings and sales

Conversion rate

The conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who have made a reservation on your website compared to the total number of visitors. It is essential to measure the propensity of your website to transform a visitor into a guest and therefore its efficiency in generating direct bookings. This is a fundamental element that must be taken into consideration when creating a website: it is about optimizing the user path in order to maximize the conversion rate.

Other goals for a website can also be set: 

• Send a contact form 
• Subscribe to a newsletter 
• Buy a gift box, etc. 

The above actions can all be considered as conversions, which is why their success depends on the goals set for your establishment’s website.

Number of reservations and online sales generated

Your hotel’s website is your main online sales tool and that is why you must absolutely follow the evolution of the turnover generated by your website. This performance indicator validates your entire digital distribution. 

Follow the number of bookings made directly on your hotel’s website to adjust the associated marketing strategy according to the seasonality, the occupancy rate or the current offers for example. This indicator is correlated to your direct revenue share. 

The online revenue compared to the revenue generated by your website will tell you the volume of direct sales. This gives you a first indication of how well your website is performing. It is also a very good way to quickly compare your current (online) sales situation with your past and future goals. 

Cost of acquisition per booking

The cost of acquisition per booking is the total of media and marketing investments needed to obtain a booking in your hotel. 

To know the cost of acquisition per booking, you need to break down each element of your marketing strategy. This means dividing the cost of the marketing budget deployed over a given period by the number of bookings over that same period.

It is also important to know the source of digital acquisition for each booking (natural referencing, paid search, metasearch, social ads, display ads, etc.). You will find most of these sources in Google Analytics.

The cost of acquisition per booking is a key performance indicator that allows you to: 

• Track the performance of the different campaigns.
• Identify and select the most profitable marketing channels. 
• Allocate more budget to the most efficient channels in order to maximize the return on investment. 

Therefore, knowing this cost allows you to better manage the marketing of your online hotel rooms, by measuring the effectiveness of your marketing and sales actions.

Average booking basket

The average booking basket is an essential KPI because it represents what each customer spends on average on your website.

Increasing your average basket is one of the most effective ways to increase your revenue. Indeed, by increasing the value per customer, you can absorb higher acquisition costs per booking while maintaining your profits or simply increase your ROI. 

In order to calculate your average basket over a given period, you need to divide your revenue by the number of bookings. As with the cost per booking ratio, it is useful to compare the different channels to identify the most profitable ones. 

This indicator allows you to better understand your customers’ buying habits and to adjust your pricing strategy. 

In the hotel industry, we observe that the average purchase basket is higher on official hotel websites than on OTAs (online travel agencies). This represents a good comparison base between your average basket and the OTAs’ for your hotel.  

KPIs to measure the relevance of your content

Time spent per page

The time spent per page by a visitor allows you to evaluate the relevance of the information delivered on each page. The longer a traveler stays on your pages, the more likely they are to book with you directly. 

Your rooms page is the most visited and the most important to market your hotel. The amount of time spent on it by visitors tells you how attractive the page is and how interesting your offers are. If there is one page to monitor, it is this one. 

Avoid adding too much text to your website, convey emotions to your customers by being clear, concise and impactful. You can break up your text into paragraphs with headings to make it easier to read. The choice of quality images to show your hotel in its best light is also essential. 

Average time per session

The average time per session is the average amount of time a visitor spends on your website, i.e. the total duration between arrival and departure (bounce) from your website. The calculation is as follows: addition of the time spent on the visited pages, divided by the number of visits. 

This tells you the overall relevance and retention level of your website. In principle, the longer a traveler stays on your website, the more likely he will book with you. 

However, in Google Analytics, this data, just like the time spent per page, remains imprecise because it does not always take into account the time spent on the last page. The analysis of your reports must therefore take this limitation into account.

Conclusion

With these 8 KPIs, you will be able to know if your hotel’s website is effective with a certain level of detail. This makes it easier for you to decide whether to adjust your digital strategy based on your website’s strengths and weaknesses. 

Keep in mind that all these figures work together. An in-depth analysis of your website is often necessary if you are intrigued by any of the data. 

To learn more about increasing direct revenue and creating a successful hotel website, contact our digital hotel marketing specialists.