You've decided to start a tour and travel business and build a website to promote it. While designing a custom website from scratch may seem daunting if you lack technical skills, it's easier than ever with powerful yet user-friendly website builders. With the right tools and a strategic design, you can create an amazing travel website that captivates visitors and compels them to book their next adventure with you. In this article on building a stunning tour and travel website using a simple drag-and-drop website builder, you'll discover how to do just that. Even with no coding experience, you can craft a professional site with eye-catching images, an engaging user experience, and powerful features to help you grow your business. By the end, you'll have the knowledge and confidence to build a travel website that rivals competitors and makes your tour and travel dreams a reality.
Why You Need a Custom Tour and Travel Website Design
As a tour and travel company, having a custom website design is crucial for success. Here are a few reasons why you need one:
- Establish credibility and trust. A professional website design builds confidence in your company and services. Customers will see you as a legitimate, reputable business.
- Improve brand visibility. An attractive, user-friendly website is the best way to showcase your brand and offerings to the world. Optimizing for search engines also helps travelers find you more easily.
- Increase conversion rates. An impactful web design, engaging content, simple navigation, and a streamlined booking process will convert more visitors into customers.
- Provide a great user experience. A custom tour and travel website should be visually stunning yet easy to use. Include large, high-quality photos, an intuitive layout, and clear calls-to-action so visitors can quickly find what they need.
- Keep up with competitors. The tour and travel industry is competitive, so you need a modern, innovative website to match or outperform competitors. Look at other sites for inspiration and ideas to implement.
- Generate more revenue. An effective website, combined with a user-friendly booking system, dynamic packaging options, and upselling features will ultimately drive more direct bookings and higher revenue for your company.
- Stay flexible and scalable. A custom design built on a content management system means you have full control to easily make changes or additions to your website as your company grows. You can add new tours, update content, and optimize the site to match changing trends.
In summary, investing in a professional tour and travel website design will set you up for success through building trust and brand visibility, improving user experience, driving more revenue, and remaining flexible as your company expands. For long term prosperity, a custom website is well worth the investment.
How to Choose a Layout Travel Website Design on Unicorn Platform
To create an eye-catching tour and travel website design on Unicorn Platform, selecting an appropriate layout is key. As a non-designer, you have two main options:
- Choose a pre-made template. Unicorn Platform offers both free and premium responsive templates tailored for the travel and tourism industry. Some highlights include:
- Adventure Travel Template: Ideal for showcasing exciting travel experiences. Includes a bold image slider, testimonial section and call to action buttons.
- Tropical Getaway Template: Evokes a relaxing island vibe with palm tree graphics and sunset images. Suited for destinations in tropical regions.
- Globetrotter Template: Clean, minimalist design perfect for any travel-related website. Incorporates Google Maps integration, social media links and an About Us page.
- Start from scratch. If you want full creative control, you can build your own custom layout using Unicorn Platform’s drag and drop builder. Some tips for designing an effective travel website include:
- Focus on high-quality images and videos to showcase destinations and experiences.
- Include an interactive map to highlight points of interest and available tours or activities.
- Provide details on accommodation, transportation options, local cuisine and more.
- Share reviews and testimonials from satisfied travelers.
- Include social media follow buttons so visitors can connect with your brand.
- Ensure your call to action buttons, contact information and booking links are prominently visible.
With an eye-catching and user-friendly layout, informative content, stunning visuals and clear calls to action, you'll have an amazing tour and travel website design in no time. By following these steps, you can build a platform to promote your travel brand and connect with new clients all over the world.
Add Stunning Images to Bring Your Website to Life
Images Are Essential for Visual Appeal
Including high-quality images on your tour and travel website design is crucial for creating a stunning visual experience for visitors. Images allow you to show off destination highlights, activities, accommodations and more in an engaging way.
Carefully curated images can convey the overall essence and allure of locations, experiences and services better than words alone. Vivid photos attract attention, stimulate interest and inspire desire in potential customers. Images are also important for search engine optimization, as they provide valuable contextual information to search engines about your content and offerings.
Select Impactful and Relevant Images
Choose images that are eye-catching, evocative and align with the specific locations, activities and experiences you offer. For example, include:
- Captivating landscape shots of destinations
- Action photos of exciting activities like hiking, boating or cultural experiences
- Appealing photos of lodging options and amenities
- Pictures of delicious local cuisine
Images should be high resolution, with a minimum size of 1920 x 1080 pixels for the best quality. For search ranking purposes, be sure to optimize images by including detailed alt text descriptions and targeting important keywords. Keep your website design uncluttered by using a balanced mix of portrait and landscape shots.
Encourage Engagement with Slideshows
In addition to still images, consider incorporating slideshows into your website design. Slideshows allow you to showcase multiple photos in an immersive way. They catch attention and keep visitors engaged as they scroll through a series of images.
Slideshows are ideal for featuring highlights of multi-day tours, giving a sneak peek into various destinations or building excitement for an upcoming season. Sync slideshows to transition on a timer, or allow visitors to manually control scrolling for a self-guided experience. Slideshows bring your stunning visuals to life on the page.
With compelling images and slideshows incorporated throughout, your tour and travel website design will capture interest, spur imagination and ultimately drive conversions. Visuals have significant power to influence and inspire travel dreams.
Include an Interactive Map to Showcase Your Destinations
Include an Interactive Map
Including an interactive map on your tour and travel website is essential for showcasing your destinations and helping potential customers plan their itineraries. An interactive map allows visitors to see exactly where you offer tours and activities, get directions to locations, and explore points of interest at each destination.
When designing your interactive map, be sure to pin all locations where you operate tours, activities or have local offices. For each location, provide a short description of what is offered there as well as photos. You should also link to the full tour or destination page from the map pin for easy access to more details. An interactive map gives people a visual overview of where you operate and helps them determine where they want to visit.
In addition to pinning your own locations, you may want to include other points of interest like national parks, historical sites, notable attractions, airports or transportation hubs. This provides more context about what else there is to do around your destinations. When users click on these additional pins, link to external resources with more information. An interactive map should aim to be a helpful trip planning tool, not just a promotional tool for your company.
For the interactive map functionality, use an established service like Google Maps, Bing Maps or Mapbox. These services allow you to easily customize map styles, add pins and descriptions, link pins to internal or external web pages, and embed the interactive map on your site. They handle the technical aspects so you can focus on curating the content and user experience.
An interactive map is an essential element for any tour and travel website. Potential customers will appreciate seeing all you have to offer visually laid out on a map, with the ability to explore destinations and points of interest in more depth. An interactive map, along with enticing photos and detailed tour listings, will transform your website into a helpful vacation planning resource and move customers further down the booking funnel.
Share Reviews and Testimonials From Happy Customers
To build credibility and trust with visitors, it is essential to feature reviews and testimonials from satisfied customers on your tour and travel website.
Authenticity is Key
Select reviews that highlight the quality of your services and overall experience you provide. Choose a mix of reviews that mention specific details about various tours, destinations, accommodations, and interactions with your staff. Generic or overly enthusiastic reviews will seem disingenuous to readers. Ask happy clients for permission to feature their full name and location to lend authenticity. You can also include a photo of the reviewer, if provided and appropriate.
Spread Reviews Throughout Your Site
Do not relegate reviews to a single page on your site. Feature excerpts from selected reviews on landing pages for destinations and tours. For example, include one or two reviews from clients who have visited Iceland or taken your Tuscany wine tour. This helps to reassure potential customers about what they can expect from that specific itinerary or trip.
Keep Reviews Up to Date
Aim to add new reviews to your site every few months to keep content fresh. Rotate which reviews are featured on landing pages and your testimonials page. Remove or archive older reviews as needed to avoid an excessively long list of testimonials, which can seem overwhelming or less believable.
Respond to Any Negative Reviews
If you receive a poor review, do not ignore it or delete it. Respond promptly and thoughtfully to negative reviews, as prospective clients will consider how you handle criticism and feedback. Thank the reviewer for their input and address any specific concerns mentioned. Explain the steps you will take to make improvements and do better for future clients. Your response can reassure readers that you are committed to high quality and service.
Using authentic reviews and testimonials, regularly updating content, and properly responding to any negative reviews are techniques that will make a profoundly positive impression on visitors to your travel and tour website. Build credibility and boost trust in your services through the relatable experiences of satisfied customers. Their stories and recommendations are a powerful way to attract new clients seeking memorable getaways and adventures.
Include a Blog to Build Authority and Engage Visitors
A regularly updated blog is essential for any tour and travel website. Adding a blog to your site has many benefits:
Build Authority and Trust
Posting valuable content on topics related to your tour and travel business helps to establish you as an authority in your industry. As visitors see you posting helpful tips, recommendations, and insights, they will come to view you as a trusted resource.
Engage Visitors and Improve SEO
New blog posts give visitors a reason to return to your site, and the more time they spend engaging with your content, the more likely they are to book a tour. Regular blogging also helps with search engine optimization (SEO) by giving search engines more pages to index, which can improve your rankings in search results.
Share Your Knowledge and Experience
A blog is the perfect platform for sharing your expertise in the travel industry. You can provide recommendations for destinations, tips for packing or planning, insights into cultural experiences, and advice for potential travelers. As an expert in your region or the types of tours you offer, you have a wealth of knowledge that will benefit your readers.
Promote Your Tours and Services
While the majority of your posts should focus on helpful advice and information for travelers, you can also use your blog to highlight specific tours and promote your services. Feature a tour of the month, spotlight a new destination or experience you’re offering, or share reviews from happy customers. Promotional posts should be balanced with more general informative content.
To build an effective blog for your tour and travel website, aim to publish posts on a consistent basis, at least 2-4 times per month. Keep your content focused on your area of expertise but vary the types of posts between practical advice, destination spotlights, customer stories, and tour promotions. Engage readers by using an open and friendly writing style, visual media like photos, and calls to action when appropriate. By blogging consistently with valuable content, you’ll boost traffic to your site, build authority in the industry, and increase sales.
Optimize for Mobile to Reach Travelers on-the-Go
Optimize Images and Text for Mobile Screens
When designing your tour and travel website, keep in mind that many of your potential customers will be accessing it on their mobile devices. Optimize your images, text, and navigation for smaller screens.
Compress your images to load faster on mobile data and Wi-Fi connections. Keep text brief and concise, using a sans-serif font sized at least 16px for easy reading. Include plenty of whitespace between sections and limit each page to one main idea or topic.
Make Buttons and Links Prominent
On mobile, fingers are bigger than mouse cursors, so make sure all interactive elements like buttons, links and navigation menus are prominently sized and spaced. Aim for tap targets at least 40px x 40px in size. This makes it easy for visitors to tap the intended link or button, even on a small screen.
Simplify the Navigation Menu
On mobile, a multi-level main navigation menu can be difficult to use. Simplify your menu to show only top-level links, with sub-menu items accessible via “hamburger icon” menus. This declutters the small screen and makes all options easy to find. You can also consider using a “sticky” menu that remains at the top of the page as visitors scroll for quick access.
Include Strong Call-to-Action Buttons
On mobile, you have less screen space and shorter visitor attention spans. Include prominent call-to-action buttons above the fold on each page, like “Book Now” or “Learn More”. Place these buttons where they are easily visible as soon as the page loads. This makes it simple for visitors to take action right away on your mobile-optimized tour and travel website.
By following these best practices, you can design an amazing tour and travel website that provides an optimal experience for visitors on both mobile and desktop. Crafting a responsive design and streamlining elements for mobile usage will help you reach more travelers on the go.
Include Strong Calls-to-Action to Capture Leads
Include a Clear Call-to-Action
A strong call-to-action (CTA) is key to converting website visitors into leads. Place an obvious CTA, such as a “Request a Free Quote” or “Sign Up Now” button prominently on your landing page, above the fold where visitors will see it immediately. The CTA should encourage visitors to provide their contact information in exchange for something of value like a free travel guide, newsletter subscription, or trip planning consultation.
Offer an Incentive
Provide an incentive for visitors to click your CTA, such as a free travel guide, checklist, or other useful resource. For example, “Sign up now to receive our Ultimate Family Beach Vacation Planning Guide!” or “Request a free custom itinerary for your dream trip to Italy!” An appealing incentive makes visitors more inclined to submit their information.
Keep Your Form Short
The lead capture form should be as short as possible, ideally with just 1 or 2 fields like name and email address. The more information you request upfront, the less likely visitors are to complete and submit the form. You can always gather additional details once the initial contact has been made.
Use Social Proof
Include ratings, reviews, testimonials, and customer stories on your landing page to build trust in your brand. For example, “Rated 5 stars on TripAdvisor and Facebook” or “Over 500 delighted customers and counting!” Social proof shows visitors that others have used your services and been highly satisfied.
Respond Quickly
Be sure to respond promptly to all leads and requests submitted through your landing page. Set a goal to contact new leads within 24 hours to express your thanks, schedule a consultation call, or get the trip planning process started right away. Fast, personalized follow up builds goodwill and maximizes the chance of converting leads into customers.
Following these best practices for creating calls-to-action and capturing high-quality leads will help ensure your tour and travel website design is optimized to drive real business results. With an effective landing page in place, you'll be well on your way to building a successful online presence and gaining new customers.
FAQs About Creating an Amazing Tour and Travel Website Design with Unicorn Platform
What page templates does Unicorn Platform offer for tour and travel websites?
Unicorn Platform provides professionally designed page templates optimized for the tourism and travel industry. Some options include:
- About Us - Share your mission, story, and team. Build trust and connection with visitors.
- Tours - Showcase your tour offerings with eye-catching photos, descriptions, itineraries, and reviews. Allow booking directly on the page.
- Destinations - Feature popular destinations, highlighting what makes them appealing to visitors with engaging content and media.
- Blog - Publish articles on travel tips, experiences, news, and advice. An active blog builds authority and boosts search ranking.
- Contact - Make it easy for visitors to get in touch with contact information, contact forms, maps, and directions.
How easy is it to customize the design of tour and travel website pages?
Unicorn Platform utilizes an intuitive drag and drop builder, allowing you to fully customize page designs with no coding required. You have options to:
- Choose from various column layouts (1-4 columns)
- Add and style page sections like photo galleries, feature blocks, maps, and more
- Select from multiple font families, sizes, and colors to match your brand
- Implement your brand's color palette and upload your logo
- Rearrange, resize, and style elements on the page with the click of a button
- Preview changes instantly and publish whenever you're ready
The platform handles all the technical aspects so you can focus on crafting a stellar user experience. With some time and practice, anyone can create a professional custom design.
How do I add a booking system to allow visitors to schedule and pay for tours?
An online booking system is essential for any tour and travel website. Unicorn Platform integrates with several leading options, including:
- Xola - An end-to-end booking system for tours and activities. Process payments, manage availability, and more. Plans for businesses of every size.
- Rezdy - A popular booking engine for the travel industry. Accept payments, handle vouchers, and distribute tours to resellers. Comprehensive solutions for tour operators and resellers.
- FareHarbor - An easy-to-use booking system with useful features for tour businesses. Take payments, manage availability, distribute to resellers, and gain insights into your sales. Very budget-friendly.
You simply select your preferred booking partner, create an account, and connect it to your Unicorn Platform website. All tours and availability will sync automatically. Your visitors can then easily book and pay for tours directly on your site.
Conclusion
In conclusion, with the right tools and some effort, you can create an amazing tour and travel website design even without advanced design skills. By focusing on high-quality images, clear calls-to-action, an intuitive layout, and compelling content, you'll be well on your way to building an attractive and effective website for your tourism business. Keep optimizing and improving over time based on user feedback and analytics, and your DIY tour and travel website design can become a valuable asset that helps your business stand out, engage your target audience, and drive more bookings and sales. With the power of platforms like Unicorn, a professional website is within your reach.
