Resort web design means selling a whole stay, not just a room: the restaurants, the spa, the golf course, the kids’ club and the weddings, all on one website that a guest can read on a phone and book from in a few minutes. The eight live resort websites below do it in eight different ways, from a private island in the Bahamas to a chain of family water park resorts.
Each one is shown the way a visitor sees it: the home page scrolls inside a laptop screen and inside a phone. Two are projects of Hotel Web Design (Résidence de Diane in Toulouse and Domaine de la Forestière in Moselle). The other six are sites we did not build, chosen for how they present a whole property and take bookings. Nothing is ranked: what matters is what you can borrow for your own resort. After the examples you will find the ways resorts organize booking, what changes for a remote lodge, what to write and shoot, six questions to ask a resort website designer, and a checklist for phone and desktop.
Resort web design: what the site has to do
A resort sells a destination, not a room. Guests are choosing among lodging, dining, a spa, a golf course or a water park, and often a way to get there, so the website has to present all of it and still keep the road to booking short. In France the same kind of property is often called a holiday village (village de vacances). Side by side, the eight sites do the same seven things.
- Open on the place and keep booking within reach. Tiamo keeps a vertical Book now tab on the edge of the screen, Mashpi Lodge and The Brando put a date search right under the opening image, Gleneagles puts a booking form over it, and Domaine de la Forestière sets its search card just below the opening banner.
- Show what the property holds, sorted by what guests came for. Kiawah Island splits its home page into five tiles (golf getaways, beach vacations, signature dining, group gathering, dream weddings), Great Wolf Lodge sorts its offer into water park, attractions, events, dining and suites, and Gleneagles has a section for families.
- Make the place concrete with facts. Tiamo states 11 villas plus 2 rooms, 38 guests at most, Gleneagles 205 rooms and 28 suites on 850 acres, and Résidence de Diane 53 apartments in a park of more than a hectare (about 2.5 acres).
- Explain how to get there. Tiamo can be reached only by boat or seaplane and has a Flight assistance entry in its menu. Mashpi Lodge gives its distance (about 54 miles) and drive time from the Equator monument near Quito, and The Brando says the atoll is a 20-minute flight from Tahiti.
- Add proof from outside. Kiawah Island shows Forbes Travel Guide and AAA Five Diamond badges, each named for the venue that earned it, Mashpi Lodge a block of Tripadvisor reviews, Résidence de Diane a customer reviews section, and Domaine de la Forestière the official five-star classification of its furnished tourist accommodation.
- Speak the guests’ languages. Tiamo, The Brando and Domaine de la Forestière are in English and French, Mashpi Lodge in English and Spanish, Gleneagles in English, French and German, and Résidence de Diane in four languages. Kiawah Island relies on a translation widget instead of language versions.
- Spell out the practical conditions. Résidence de Diane gives its check-in and check-out times and its pool hours on the home page, and Tiamo’s offers state their payment terms, for example a one-night deposit with the balance due three days before the trip.
8 resort website examples, analyzed
Each card has two scrolling screens, one for a laptop and one for a phone, then what we noticed on the live site in October 2026 and what to take from it. The link Our project (in French) opens the portfolio page of the one project of ours that has one.
Tiamo
Private island resort · South Andros, Bahamas
A private island resort on South Andros: according to its home page, only 11 villas and 2 rooms for no more than 38 guests, reached by boat or seaplane. The opening screen is an aerial photo of the beach, the pool and the dock with the logo over it. A short welcome text follows, then a mosaic of photos, news and a carousel of special offers, each with its conditions in words, such as a one-night deposit with the balance due three days before the trip.
Booking is always in reach. A vertical Book now tab sits on the right edge of the screen, above icons for phone, WhatsApp, a contact page and photos, and on a phone the same five buttons form a bar at the bottom of the first screen. The tab opens a SynXis booking page. The menu also has a Flight assistance entry, which suits a place you cannot drive to. The site is in English and French.
Key takeaways
- A small resort can lead with one large photo and a single Book now tab, with nothing else competing for the first click.
- For a place you cannot drive to, the way there gets its own menu entry (Flight assistance).
- Type
- Private island resort
- Location
- South Andros, Bahamas
- Booking
- SynXis booking page
- Languages
- English, French
Mashpi Lodge
Rainforest lodge · Mashpi, Ecuador
A lodge in the cloud forest of Ecuador, about 54 miles and a three-hour drive northwest of the Equator monument near Quito, at roughly 3,100 feet. The home page opens on the headline A rainforest hotel in the clouds, and a date search sits right under the image: check-in, check-out, rooms and people, then a bright Book online button that leads to a booking page on the lodge’s own site. Below it come the rooms and suites, tiles for the activities (a gondola over the canopy, birdwatching, a sky bike, waterfalls) and a Hotel location block that explains the drive.
The header keeps a phone number and entries such as Why book directly and Plan your stay in view, and on a phone a bar with Chat with us and Book now stays fixed along the bottom of the screen. Further down, a block of Tripadvisor reviews and a contact form that asks whether you are a direct customer or a travel agent. The site is in English and Spanish.
Key takeaways
- The date search sits under the opening image in the brand’s accent color, so the first screen sells and books at once.
- Menu entries such as Why book directly and Plan your stay speak to a guest who is still deciding.
- Type
- Rainforest lodge
- Location
- Mashpi, Ecuador
- Booking
- Date search, then a booking page on the site
- Languages
- English, Spanish
The Brando
Private island resort · Tetiaroa, French Polynesia
A resort of 35 private villas and a residence on the Tetiaroa atoll, a 20-minute flight from Tahiti. The opening screen is a full-width video with almost no text: the logo, a menu icon and a Reserve button in the header. Directly under the video, a band reads Book your stay, with arrival and departure dates, a guest selector and a Check availability button. It opens a booking page on a separate address, and a green band beneath it promotes an early booking offer.
The rest of the page reads like a magazine: a short statement about the atoll, a section on the experiences led by the guides of the Tetiaroa Society, and a carousel of offers that includes early booking and long stays. The site is in English and French.
Key takeaways
- Dates, guests and a Check availability button sit on the lower edge of the first screen, so a decision made on the photo can turn into a booking at once.
- Large images and little text suit a luxury positioning, and the booking band is the one functional element on the screen.
- Type
- Private island resort
- Location
- Tetiaroa, French Polynesia
- Booking
- Availability bar, then a separate booking page
- Languages
- English, French
Kiawah Island Golf Resort
Golf and beach resort · Kiawah Island, South Carolina
A large golf and beach resort on a barrier island near Charleston, with ten miles of private shoreline, five golf courses and more than a dozen restaurants, according to its home page. That is far more than a bed to sell, so the menu panel, opened from the button at the top left, starts with a row of five quick links, one each for hotel rooms, villa or home rentals, tee times, daily events and an interactive map. The hotel link goes to a SynXis page, the villa and tee time links to an rGuest page.
Under a video header, five tall tiles (Golf Getaways, Beach Vacations, Signature Dining, Group Gathering, Dream Weddings) sort visitors by what they came for. An Exclusive Guest Benefits block explains why to book direct: according to the site, only guests who reserve directly with the resort enjoy the total vacation experience it describes, one it says no rental agency on the island can match. Forbes Travel Guide and AAA Five Diamond badges sit near the bottom of the page, each named for the venue that earned it: The Sanctuary hotel, its spa and The Ocean Room. The site is in English, with a Google Translate widget for other languages.
Key takeaways
- When one property sells rooms, villas, tee times and weddings, a row of quick links sends each visitor to the right booking tool, and tiles on the home page sort visitors by what they came for.
- A Book Direct block says in plain words what the guest gains by booking with the resort itself.
- Type
- Golf and beach resort
- Location
- Kiawah Island, South Carolina (USA)
- Booking
- Several booking tools (SynXis, rGuest)
- Languages
- English, with a translation widget
Gleneagles
Country resort hotel · Auchterarder, Scotland
A Scottish country resort of 205 rooms and 28 suites on 850 acres, with golf courses, a spa and Michelin-starred dining, according to its home page. The first screen carries the whole booking form: under the headline The Glorious Playground and over a full-screen video, it asks for check-in and check-out dates, total guests and an optional promo code, then offers a Book your stay button that opens a separate booking site. The header has a Book button as well.
The rest of the page is organized by who is reading: a feature on the Tower Suite, a Stay section, and a Gather the Clan section for families. The menu follows the same logic (Stay, Eat & Drink, Families, Golf, Spa & Wellness and more), and a separate link in the header leads to the group’s Edinburgh hotel, Gleneagles Townhouse. The site is in English, French and German.
Key takeaways
- The full booking form (dates, guests, promo code) sits at the bottom of the opening image, on a laptop and on a phone alike.
- Sections and menu follow the guest’s intent (stay, families, golf, spa) rather than the property’s departments.
- Type
- Country resort hotel
- Location
- Auchterarder, Scotland
- Booking
- Booking form on the first screen, then a separate booking site
- Languages
- English, French, German
Great Wolf Lodge
Indoor water park resorts · 23 lodges in the U.S. and Canada
Great Wolf Lodge calls itself the largest family of indoor water park resorts in North America, with 23 lodges listed on its home page, so the first job of the site is to send each visitor to the right one. The opening screen is a video with a destination field, and just below it a map of the United States with a pin for each lodge and a list of lodges by state and province. A Share my location button highlights the nearest ones.
The date search lives on each lodge’s own page: the Niagara Falls lodge, for instance, opens with check-in and check-out dates, guests, a promo code field and a Book now button. The rest of the home page explains the product in the visitor’s terms: a water park kept at 84 degrees all year, then blocks for attractions, free daily events, dining and suites, each with a View all link, and six frequently asked questions, such as what a stay includes and whether you must stay to use the water park.
Key takeaways
- For a brand with several properties, the home page is a lodge finder: a destination field, a map, a list by state and a share-location button.
- Each lodge has its own page and its own date search, so the guest books a place, not a brand.
- Type
- Family resort chain
- Location
- 23 lodges in the U.S. and Canada
- Booking
- Choose a lodge first, then a date search on its page
- Languages
- English
Résidence de Diane
Serviced apartment complex · Toulouse, France
One of our projects: a serviced apartment complex of 53 furnished flats in a park of more than a hectare (about 2.5 acres), ten minutes by car from Toulouse-Blagnac Airport. The site is built around the case for booking direct. The first screen carries a search bar (dates, guests, offer code) and a Book at the best price button, a line above the content repeats the promo code to enter, and the look follows the logo, gold on dark and white backgrounds. The search bar and the Book at the best price button open a booking page on a separate address.
The long home page answers what a guest asks before booking. A services block gives the 24-hour reception, check-in from 4 pm and check-out by 11 am, an outdoor pool open from 9 am to 9 pm, a tennis court, a bar, free parking and laundry. Three bus routes are said to reach the city center in 35 minutes. A section of customer reviews and a contact form close the page. The site is in four languages.
Key takeaways
- The promo code is stated twice, in a line above the content and in the introduction, so the benefit of booking direct is hard to miss.
- Practical facts (reception, check-in time, pool hours, parking) sit in a services block on the home page, not on a separate page.
- Type
- Serviced apartment complex
- Location
- Toulouse, France
- Booking
- Search bar, then a booking page
- Languages
- French, English, Spanish, German
Domaine de la Forestière
Forest estate with cabins and spa · Moselle, France
Another of our projects: a former forester’s house built in 1866 and renovated between 2021 and 2024, in Saint-Louis, Moselle, with two unusual cabins (the Cabane de l’Étang and the Cabane dans l’Arbre), a spa and sauna area, and weddings. The first screen shows the house, the French five-star classification badge for furnished tourist accommodation (meublé de tourisme), a short line and one button, Discover the estate.
Right under the opening banner, a Find your accommodation card holds the date search: dates, adults (1 to 10), children (0 to 6) and a Search button, with three short reassurances beneath it (real-time prices, secure booking, direct booking). The search opens an Amenitiz booking page. The page then presents the estate in large photographs, a Wellness, spa and sauna section with an Online booking button, and a contact form. On a phone, the search card stacks into a single column. The site is in French and English.
Key takeaways
- The date search is a card just under the opening banner, with three short reassurances next to the button.
- An official classification badge on the first screen gives a recognized proof before any text.
- Type
- Forest estate with cabins and spa
- Location
- Saint-Louis, Moselle (France)
- Booking
- Date search, then a booking page
- Languages
- French, English
The eight resort websites at a glance
A private island, a nature lodge, a golf resort, a chain: the structure of the site changes, the principle does not. The Booking column shows what happens when a guest decides to book.
| Website | Location | Type | Booking | Languages |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tiamo | South Andros, Bahamas | Private island resort | SynXis booking page | English, French |
| Mashpi Lodge | Mashpi, Ecuador | Rainforest lodge | Date search, then a booking page on the site | English, Spanish |
| The Brando | Tetiaroa, French Polynesia | Private island resort | Availability bar, then a separate booking page | English, French |
| Kiawah Island Golf Resort | Kiawah Island, South Carolina (USA) | Golf and beach resort | Several booking tools (SynXis, rGuest) | English, with a translation widget |
| Gleneagles | Auchterarder, Scotland | Country resort hotel | Booking form on the first screen, then a separate booking site | English, French, German |
| Great Wolf Lodge | 23 lodges in the U.S. and Canada | Family resort chain | Choose a lodge first, then a date search on its page | English |
| Résidence de Diane | Toulouse, France | Serviced apartment complex | Search bar, then a booking page | French, English, Spanish, German |
| Domaine de la Forestière | Saint-Louis, Moselle (France) | Forest estate with cabins and spa | Date search, then a booking page | French, English |
Which example is closest to your resort?
- A small, remote resort with a luxury positioning. Tiamo and The Brando lead with one large image and one booking control, and say how to get there.
- A nature lodge sold through its activities. Mashpi Lodge puts a date search under the opening image, then sells the place through its tours and its story.
- A large property with golf, dining, a spa and weddings. Kiawah Island and Gleneagles sort everything they sell by what the guest came for.
- A brand with several properties. Great Wolf Lodge starts with a lodge finder and gives each lodge its own date search.
- A smaller complex or estate that wants direct bookings. Résidence de Diane and Domaine de la Forestière put a search bar on the first screen and state the benefit of booking direct.
Web development for resorts: three ways to organize booking
After the photos, the biggest design choice is the road from “I like this place” to “it is booked”. A resort often sells more than rooms, so the eight sites use three different roads.
One date search, one booking page
Tiamo, Mashpi Lodge, The Brando, Gleneagles, Résidence de Diane and Domaine de la Forestière put a date search or a Book button on the first screen and open the booking page from there. One booking tool takes the whole stay. For most of them the booking page lives on the engine’s own address, so it should repeat the resort’s name, its photos and the dates the guest has just chosen.
Several booking tools behind quick links
Kiawah Island sells hotel rooms, villas and tee times, and the tools are not the same. The site does not hide that: a row of five quick links in its menu panel sends the guest to Hotel Reservations, Find a Villa or Home or Book a Tee Time, and a Book Direct block on the home page explains what reserving directly with the resort brings. Because the links sit in the menu, a visitor who never opens it will not see them, so a resort can also repeat them on the first screen. When a resort sells several kinds of products, the website’s job is to give each one its own clear door.
Pick the property first, then the dates
A brand with several properties cannot ask for dates before it knows where. Great Wolf Lodge opens with a destination field and a map of its lodges, and each lodge page has its own date search, guest count and promo code field. Gleneagles keeps its Edinburgh hotel as a separate link in the header, away from the booking form of the resort.
Booky and calendar sync
For small properties, Hotel Web Design builds websites around Booky, a booking engine with calendar sync. Bookings taken with Booky carry no commission. Booky synchronizes calendars both ways with Booking, Airbnb, Homelidays and other platforms, so a room sold elsewhere is blocked on your site and the other way around. It also handles seasonal rates, arrival and departure days, stay-length rules, online payment with a deposit and a balance, a card imprint as a guarantee, legal invoices and scheduled emails.
Booky suits hotels of up to about twenty rooms, inns, guest houses, apartments and holiday rentals. A larger resort usually keeps the booking engine it already has, and the site is built around it: the two projects above use external booking tools. For golf, a spa or other services sold next to the rooms, we check case by case which tool covers them.
Google Hotels
Hotel Web Design is listed in the official Google Hotels connectivity partner directory. Whether and where a property appears on Google Hotels is Google’s decision, so no result can be promised. What we can do is meet the conditions: an accurate listing, a clear booking page and exact prices.
Lodge website development: what changes for a remote property
A lodge in a cloud forest or a resort on an island raises a question that a city hotel rarely does: the guest has to plan the journey before booking. Tiamo, Mashpi Lodge and The Brando answer it on the home page, and four habits are worth copying.
- Put the journey in plain words. A flight, a boat, a drive time. Tiamo has a Flight assistance entry in its menu, Mashpi Lodge a Hotel location block with its drive time and a link to a blog article on how to get there, and The Brando says it is a 20-minute flight from Tahiti.
- Sell the activities as part of the stay. Mashpi Lodge has a Deals & Tours entry in its menu and gives each activity (a gondola over the canopy, birdwatching, a sky bike, waterfalls) its own tile.
- Offer several ways to reach you. Tiamo puts phone, WhatsApp and contact buttons on its first screen. Mashpi Lodge shows a phone number in its header and asks in its contact form whether you are a direct customer or a travel agent, which suits the guests who book through an agent.
- Back the story with facts. Mashpi Lodge supports its nature story with figures on the reserve around the lodge: hectares protected and restored, new species recorded, the share of local employees.
The same four habits fit a mountain lodge or a desert camp. Lodge website development is resort web design with the journey and the setting turned up.
Resort website content: what to write and shoot
Guests read a resort website the way they read a brochure, in a few passes: pictures first, then facts, then conditions. Content that serves that reading is the cheapest improvement a resort site can get.
- Photos of the place in use. One series per type of accommodation, then the pool, the restaurant, the spa, the grounds and the view. Kiawah Island and Great Wolf Lodge also show people using the place: a child on a boardwalk, a couple at a wedding, a family on a slide.
- Facts before adjectives. Rooms, acres, distances, opening hours. Gleneagles and Tiamo open with figures, and Résidence de Diane gives the pool’s hours.
- One section per audience. Families, couples, groups, weddings: Kiawah Island does it with tiles, Gleneagles with a family section.
- Offers with their conditions in words. Name the offer, say what it includes and when the balance is due, as Tiamo does, and take an offer down when it ends.
- An FAQ. Great Wolf Lodge answers six questions on its home page and Mashpi Lodge has an FAQ of its own, so guests do not have to write to ask.
- A description for every image. A short alt text helps visitors who use a screen reader and tells search engines what the picture shows.
Choosing a resort website designer: six questions
Whether you hire a freelancer or a resort web design agency, the same six questions separate a site that works from a site that only looks good.
- Who owns the site, the domain name and the content? You should be able to leave with all three.
- Which booking engine does it use, and does it charge a commission? Ask whether the site can work with the engine you already have, and what each booking costs you.
- How does it handle languages? Each language version should have its own address, and the versions should point to one another, as Google’s documentation on localized versions explains.
- How do you change an offer or a photo? Offers change every season. If each change needs a developer, the site will lag behind the resort.
- How fast is it on a phone? Ask for the Core Web Vitals of a live site the designer built, not for a promise.
- What happens after launch? Hosting, security, backups, updates and support: who does each, and what you pay for it.
Then ask for live examples of properties like yours and open them on a phone, as you did with the eight above.
Resort website checklist: phone and desktop
On a phone
- The date search or one clear Book button is visible without scrolling. Tiamo shows a bar of five buttons at the bottom of the first screen, Mashpi Lodge keeps Chat with us and Book now fixed along the bottom, and Gleneagles puts its whole booking form on the first screen.
- A phone number or a WhatsApp button can be tapped. Tiamo has both in its first-screen bar.
- Figures and conditions can be read without zooming, and the page never scrolls sideways.
- You have run the booking path yourself, from the first screen to the confirmation, on a real phone, including the pages of the booking engine.
On a desktop screen
- The menu follows what guests look for. Gleneagles lists Stay, Eat & Drink, Families, Golf and Spa & Wellness, among others.
- The opening image is large and carries the date search or a reserve button in the same view.
- The way to get there is easy to find, with a map or a drive or flight time.
On both
- The phone and the desktop versions hold the same content. Google uses the mobile version of a page to index and rank it, so text, headings and image descriptions that exist only on the desktop version do not count.
- The pages are fast. The Core Web Vitals targets are a largest contentful paint within 2.5 seconds, an interaction to next paint of 200 milliseconds or less and a layout shift of 0.1 or less, measured at the 75th percentile of visits and reported for mobile and desktop separately.
- Every language has its own address and the same content, including the booking page where the engine allows it.
- Every photo has a description and fixed dimensions, so the text does not jump when it loads.
- Check-in and check-out times, deposit, cancellation, children and pets are written before the booking starts.
- A star rating or a certification is shown with the name of the body that gave it, as Kiawah Island and Domaine de la Forestière do.
Other accommodation websites
A resort sits between a hotel and a holiday village. For hotel web development, or for the same exercise on other kinds of lodging, see our villa website examples, vacation rental website examples and spa and hotel spa website examples. In French, we also cover ten resort websites, websites for resorts and holiday villages and hotels.
Questions about resort websites
What should a resort website include?
Large photos of every kind of accommodation and of the places guests will use (pool, restaurants, spa, grounds), the key facts (rooms, size, distances, opening hours), a date search or a Book button on the first screen, the offers with their conditions, the way to get there, proof from other guests or from an official classification, an FAQ, and every language you sell in. The eight examples above each cover most of these in a different way.
Does a resort need more than one booking tool?
Not always. A resort that sells only rooms can use one engine for the whole stay. A resort that also sells golf, villas, a spa or events may end up with several, as Kiawah Island does with a hotel booking page and a separate tool for villas and tee times, and the website then needs a clear door for each. Bookings taken with Booky carry no commission; with another engine, check its contract.
How should a resort website handle several languages?
Give each language version its own address and link the versions together: Google’s documentation on localized versions works from that principle. The eight examples go from one language (Great Wolf Lodge) to four (Résidence de Diane). Start with the languages of the guests you already welcome, and translate everything on the page, including the booking page where the engine allows it.
What is different about a lodge website or a remote resort website?
The guest has to plan the journey before booking, so the site puts the way there on the home page (a flight, a boat or a drive time), sells the activities as part of the stay and offers several ways to reach you. Tiamo, Mashpi Lodge and The Brando show how.
What does a resort web design agency do, and how do I choose one?
It designs the pages, organizes the content around what guests come for, connects the booking engine, sets up the languages, makes the site fast on a phone and usually looks after hosting and updates. To choose one, ask the six questions in this article, ask for live resort or hotel websites it has built, and open them on a phone.
Does a resort website need a mobile version, and how fast should it be?
Yes. Google uses the mobile version of a page to index and rank it, which means the phone version must hold the same content as the desktop one. The Core Web Vitals targets are a largest contentful paint within 2.5 seconds, an interaction to next paint of 200 milliseconds or less and a layout shift of 0.1 or less, measured at the 75th percentile of visits. Large photos and videos make a resort site heavy, so these are the first numbers to ask your designer about.
