As the season approaches, most tourism businesses turn their attention to advertising and campaigns. Yet a good share of demand is lost before the ads even come into play, on the website itself: the page is slow to open on a phone, the form is long, the WhatsApp button is hard to find, or the enquiry sits in an email inbox that nobody looks at.
At BernSoftware we build websites, enquiry forms, CRM and 3D virtual tours for tourism businesses. Below are the points we check first whenever we look at a hotel or agency website.
1. Does it open quickly on a phone?
Most of your guests reach the site from a phone, often on mobile data. If the home page stays blank for a few seconds, the visitor goes back and taps the next result.
This is easy to test: open your site on your own phone with Wi-Fi switched off. Big slider images, videos that play automatically and plugins you don't need are usually the first culprits. Serving images at the right size and in modern formats makes a big difference by itself.
2. How many steps does the enquiry form take?
Every extra field on a form is an enquiry that never gets sent. In the first step, ask only for what you truly need: dates, number of guests, room or package preference and contact details. You can collect the rest in the first conversation.
A good example is the pre-assessment form we set up for Starlet Turizm, a visa consultancy: the visitor first picks the country and the visa type, then leaves their contact details. The questions come in the same order the guest is already thinking in.
3. Are WhatsApp and phone one tap away?
In Turkey, many guests would rather send a message or call than fill in a form. The WhatsApp and phone buttons should be on every page, in the same spot on the screen, one tap away. Opening the chat with a ready-made message ("Hello, I'd like to ask about a room for two for 12–15 July") makes life easier for the guest and helps you understand the request faster.
4. Where does the enquiry end up?
This is the question most often skipped. If the form goes to an email address, nobody can say who answers that email or when. In busy periods enquiries are spread across phone, WhatsApp, email and social media, and you lose track of which guests have had a reply.
Having each enquiry arrive in a CRM as a new opportunity ends this scatter: who got in touch, what they wanted, who will get back to them and whether a quote has gone out all show up on the same card.
5. How long do quotes and follow-ups take?
Guests usually ask several places for a price at the same time. The business that replies first and follows up tends to come out ahead. Building a quote from the price list in a few clicks, requiring manager approval above a certain discount and setting automatic reminders for quotes that get no answer all have a direct effect on how fast the team moves.
6. Can foreign guests understand your site?
For a hotel or agency that serves guests from abroad, two languages are the minimum, and depending on the target market a third or fourth may be needed. What counts here is not automatic translation but pages built properly in each language: separate URLs, the right titles, and content written with the words people actually search for in that language.
7. Do you show up in search?
When the ad budget runs out, search is what keeps the traffic coming. Separate pages for each destination, room type, tour or service, frequently asked questions and regular blog posts are what make a site visible in search results.
For Starlet Turizm we did this with a separate visa page for each of 49 countries, along with FAQs and blog content. Someone searching for "Germany visa" lands straight on the Germany page.
8. Do you really show the place?
Photos matter, but they cannot fully convey the size and layout of a space. A 3D and VR virtual tour lets guests walk around the room, the lobby or a yacht's deck before they arrive. On our SEYR platform, spaces can be explored in the browser, in AR on a phone, or with a VR headset, with no app to download. In SEYR Yacht, which we built for yachts, guests can move through three decks and the cabins and switch between material and daylight options.
In short
Before the season, look at your site with these questions in mind: is it fast on a phone, can an enquiry be left in a few taps, does that enquiry reach the right person without getting lost, and can guests really see the place?
If the answer to all four is "yes", every lira you spend on advertising works harder.
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