Responsive design is a must for hotel and brand websites today, and those willing to invest a bit more resources should already be looking at the next best thing—adaptive design, according to experts.

　　Responsive design is a must for hotel and brand websites today, and those willing to invest a bit more resources should already be looking at the next best thing—adaptive design, according to experts.

　　A panel of Web executives this week at the Digital Marketing Strategy Conference hosted by Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International agreed responsive design, which is a design approach in which Web content shifts and adapts to varying screen sizes, should be the standard.

　　"Designers and marketers have gotten lazy because they say, ‘There’s whitespace here so just stuff something there,’” said Ryan Clarke, director of business development for Wallop, a Canadian-based digital marketing studio. “Shrinking pages down to this small size requires you to think about what content is critical.”

　　The good news for hoteliers who are still weighing responsive design is that publishing separate sites for desktop and mobile is still serving the customer well for the time being.

　　However, “that doesn’t get you out of going to responsive design in the long run,” said Bryan Estep, VP International for Buuteeq, a Web design platform serving the hotel space.

　　Andy Kauffman, VP of global e-commerce marketing for Marriott International, said more than half of Marriott.com’s traffic now comes from mobile devices and all of Marriott’s brand websites will be responsive within the next 21 months. Part of that process is ensuring all the tools Marriott offers on its site, particularly revenue-generating elements, fit in a responsive framework.

　　"Responsive itself isn’t any great feat but to do it well means to take key pieces of your site and rearrange information to increase revenue for your hotel,” Kauffman said.

　　Responsive questions answered

　　The first question hotel webmasters must answer is what content goes where as the screen size shrinks.

　　The panelists suggested using data and research to determine the most engaging pages. Estep said using bounce rate and time on site for individual pages as metrics to determine what stays and what gets cut. “Seeing when the consumer leaves which page and goes into the booking engine is key,” he said.

　　Maps and photos are two of the most important elements of a hotel website and must be accounted for in responsive design, the panelists agreed.

　　Another hurdle to overcome during a responsive redesign is how to handle third-party elements within the site that don’t mesh well within a responsive framework. In this instance, Clarke suggested finding pieces of technology that fit and leaving ones that don’t behind. “Find people who have adopted responsive early to use as third-party partners,” he said. “If they’re not moving in that direction, that’s a problem.”

　　Kauffman said a responsive redesign requires a redefinition of partners. “In the future you may want to control the message and therefore use your partner more as an (application programming interface),” he said.