Two stone hotels that sell the slow pace before the room.
Website
- Status
- Concept / demo: designed and built by the studio to show the process. Not a paid client project.
- Example brand
- Mira Hotels
- Sector
- Hospitality & travel
- Services
- Strategy, Design, Build, CMS, Booking integration
- Sheet
- PF-30
- Timeline
- 3–4 weeks
How do two small hotels stop looking like a pension on a booking site?
Guests thought they were booking a pension.
/01 The brief
Mira is two small stone hotels on a hill above the sea. Most guests found them on booking sites, between many similar listings, and arrived expecting a pension. The owners wanted guests to arrive already knowing the place.
The brief was to sell the stay before the room: breakfast on the terrace, the path down to the sea, the slow pace of the day. And to keep booking one tap away, so a guest who is ready never has to look for it.
Two houses, three languages, and direct bookings as the goal.
/02 The first sheet
The sheet named couples and slow travellers, from home and from Germany and the UK. That gave three languages: English, German and the local language. The goal line was plain and honest: more direct bookings, fewer commissions to the big booking sites.
Pages: Home, a page for each house, rooms, dining, the coast guide and a journal. One line under Content mattered most. The owners would write the guide and the menus themselves, so the editor had to be simple.
PF-30 · Approved
- Type
- Website
- Who it is for
- Couples and slow travellers, many from Germany and the UK
- Goal
- More direct bookings, fewer commissions
- Pages
- Home, two houses, rooms, dining, the coast guide, journal
- Features
- Booking widget on every page, seasonal menus, guide from the owners
- Languages
- English, German and the local language
- Content
- Owners write the guide and the menus in the CMS
- Timeline
- 3–4 weeks
Stone, linen and the noon light on the bay.
/03 The look
Gloock gives the headings the feel of a house name carved over a door. Hanken Grotesk keeps rooms, menus and booking clear. The colours are lifted from the houses: limestone, linen, olive wood and the deep blue of the bay.
Photographs are wide and unhurried: the terrace before breakfast, a table set for dinner, the path to the water. Rooms come later in the story, on purpose. People choose the place first, then the bed.
Each house has its own page and its own rooms.
/04 The pages
The two houses sit close together but feel different, so each has a page of its own, with its rooms, its views and the walk to the sea. Room pages show the bed, the window, what the light does, and a booking widget.
Dining shows the seasonal dinner menu, which the owners update every week. The coast guide is written by the owners in their own words: beaches, boat trips, the village market, and which path goes down to the sea.
Booking stays one tap away on every page.
/05 On the phone
Travellers plan on the phone, often weeks ahead and late in the evening. The booking button stays at the bottom of the screen on every page, and opens dates and guests without leaving the story they are reading.
Photographs are cropped for a tall screen rather than squeezed into it. The coast guide works as a list you can keep open on the beach, with each place linked straight to its location on the map.
Ready before the May season, in three languages.
/06 What was drawn
Mira is built to be ready before the May season, in English, German and the local language. The booking widget is tied to the hotels’ channel manager, so availability on the website always matches what the booking sites show.
Each house has its room pages, the dinner menu changes weekly from the editor, and the coast guide reads in the owners’ own voice. A journal carries the season’s news between visits and gives returning guests a reason to look again.
- Pages for both houses and every room
- English, German and the local language
- Booking widget on every page, tied to the channel manager
- Weekly dinner menu from the editor
- Coast guide written by the owners
- Journal for the season’s news
Big photographs, still quick on holiday Wi-Fi.
/07 Performance & access
Hotel sites are photograph-heavy, and many visitors open them on slow holiday connections. Each photograph is served at the size the screen needs, and the ones further down load only when you come near them.
Our pre-launch list covered text readable at double zoom, contrast on every button, a booking flow usable with the keyboard alone, and German words that still fit their buttons. The list runs again every Friday.
Drawn and built by Paftane: Strategy, Design, Build, CMS, Booking integration.
Related notes
