Principal Hotels is a collection of award-winning establishments located in key city centres across the UK. Each hotel is uniquely designed to reflect its surroundings, offering a distinctive experience. Principal Hotels can be found in cities such as London, Edinburgh, Manchester, York, Glasgow, Cardiff, Leeds, Oxford, Birmingham, and Liverpool.
Principal Hotels needed to significantly enhance their customer journey online to improve the performance of their conversion funnel. The goal was to increase direct bookings, boosting revenue while reducing reliance on third-party booking platforms that charged hefty commissions.
The ideal solution would feature a streamlined, efficient booking engine capable of showcasing live availability, promotions and property images. It had to be integrated with their existing Micro Opera property management system and also cater to the growing number of mobile users, ensuring an intuitive and fully responsive booking experience on any device.
Brand consistency across online and offline channels was another key requirement. The new platform had to uphold the visual and functional identity of the Principal Hotels brand while delivering a feature-rich, user-friendly experience.
To start the process we conducted multiple workshops with the existing agency and client, to understand their current hosting environment and website structure. We also put an implementation plan into action over a few weeks to ensure the overall functionality of each application. This was a vital part of the process as many of the applications were integral to the Principal Hayley Hotels’ day to day running, including eCommerce booking engines, payment gateways and Wi-Fi entry points.
Our team developed a booking engine powered by the Opera Web Service platform, fully integrated with their core Opera Property Management System. This included seamless connections to Servebase PC-EFT for secure online payments and the Immediacy Content Management System, ensuring a smooth, complete online booking experience.
Special attention was given to mobile usability, creating an adaptive platform that allowed customers to book with ease on any device. The system was also designed for scalability, enabling future growth and enhancement.
Post-launch, we provided ongoing Umbraco Support services to optimise the site’s performance further, ensuring it remained efficient and aligned with evolving customer needs.
The launch of the new booking engine surpassed all expectations. Key performance metrics saw exceptional growth:
- Transactions increased by 121%
- Conversion rates rose by 38%
- Revenue soared by 123%
This project successfully delivered an intuitive, customer-centric platform that not only met Principal Hotels’ goals but also elevated the brand’s digital presence across all touchpoints.