Websites for tourism
Your activities, dates and booking, clearly laid out.
Before booking, a visitor wants photos, the dates on offer, the price and directions to get to you. I put that information on a single page.
Direct
a direct booking link, no middleman
Maps & Business Profile optimized
Mobile
readable on a phone, on the move
What is built in for tourism
What I see most often on tourism websites
A visitor planning a trip compares three or four options in the same evening. Here is what sends them to your neighbour instead, and what I find on most of the sites I review.
Available dates are written nowhere
To find out whether you have room the weekend of the 12th, the visitor has to send an email and wait. A good share of them will not bother and will book elsewhere overnight. A calendar, or even a plain list of open dates, fixes it.
The booking button sends people to an outside platform with no warning
The customer thinks they are still on your site and lands on a middleman that takes a commission on the night. You lose the percentage and the direct relationship at the same time.
The photos are beautiful and the site takes eight seconds to open
A gallery of forty uncompressed images, opened on a phone at the side of the road, does not load. The visitor closes the tab before the first photo even appears.
Prices are shown nowhere
Hiding the price to force a phone call mostly drives away the people comparing three options on a Sunday night. A clear range, or a starting price per night, filters out the enquiries that were never going anywhere and leaves you more time for the real ones.
The English version is machine-translated, or does not exist
Most visitors to the Eastern Townships come from within Quebec, but some arrive from Ontario and New England, and those ones search in English. A bilingual site, with two separately indexed versions rather than a translate button, picks up those searches.
Practical information is scattered
Parking, access, pets, check-in time, what to bring: those answers go out one at a time in private messages, usually in the evening. A practical information page removes most of that back and forth.
What goes on the site
The content differs depending on whether you rent cottages, guide outings or run an attraction, but the base stays the same.
Optimized photo and video gallery
Your images are resized and converted to a light format so the page stays fast even on the cellular data of a visitor already on the road.
Online booking wired to your tool
The site connects to your existing system, or to a simple tool like Calendly when you run guided visits and activities on a fixed schedule.
Rates and packages page
Prices per night or per activity, high and low season, and what is included, so a visitor can decide without writing to you.
Practical information page
Access, parking, check-in time, pets, what to bring and contact details. This is the page that cuts your message volume the most.
French version and English version
Each language gets its own page addresses, which lets Google rank the English version for English searches.
Google Business Profile and map
Hours, photos, reviews and directions, because many visitors find you in Google Maps before they ever reach your site.
A page about the surrounding area
The attractions, restaurants and trails around you. This page picks up searches like what to do in Magog and brings in people who had never heard of you.
Reviews and credentials placed well
Your guests' comments and your certifications sit next to the booking button, exactly where visitors hesitate.
People search using the name Eastern Townships
A traveller from Montreal or Boston does not search for Estrie, they search for what to do in the Eastern Townships or for a cottage near Lake Memphremagog. I write the pages using the names people actually type: Magog, Mount Orford, the Coaticook gorge, Sherbrooke, Granby. If you are twenty minutes from a well-known attraction, that belongs on the page with the drive time, because it is often the detail that tips a booking your way.
Possible scopes
Tourism showcase site
Activities, photos, practical information and a clear path toward booking.
Custom after diagnosisBooking platform
Search, availability, PMS, payments or multilingual depending on your tools.
Custom after diagnosisFrequently asked questions in tourism
Can the site connect to my booking system?
In most cases, yes. Common lodging and ticketing systems offer either a widget you embed in the page or a programming interface. When your tool allows neither, we keep a link to its calendar and make the handover obvious to the visitor. Tell me which one you use and I check before quoting a price.
Do I really need an English version?
It depends on your clientele. If part of your visitors come from Ontario, the United States or elsewhere in Canada, the English version pays for itself quickly, because it makes you visible in searches you don’t appear in at all today. If your customers are mainly local and francophone, we can start in French only and add English later.
How much does a website for a tourism business cost?
The price depends on the number of pages, the number of units or activities to present and how booking is connected. A showcase site linking to an external calendar costs considerably less than a platform that manages availability and payments. I give a fixed price after a call where we look at your real offer, and the pricing page explains what makes the amount vary.
Can I change my rates and dates myself?
Yes, and we decide how at quoting. By default you send me the new prices, dates or photos and I put them live: I reply in 2 business days, so your updates don’t depend on the time you have to spare in high season. If you’d rather run it yourself, we build on a content management system like WordPress, with an admin interface. That is decided up front, because it changes how the site is built.
What does a site give me that my Facebook page or a rental platform does not?
The site belongs to you and takes no commission on each night. It also shows up in Google for specific searches, which a Facebook page does poorly. In practice most operators keep both: platforms bring new guests, and the site is where returning guests book directly.
Do you handle the photography?
I’m not a photographer. I work with the photos you have, I optimize them for the web, and I tell you plainly which ones do your offer no favours. If you want a professional shoot, I tell you which shots are missing before you book it, so you don’t pay twice.
Useful pages before you start
If you are still comparing, these pages answer the questions that come before choosing a provider.
- web design
The design process, page structure and the work done on your photos.
- SEO and conversion
How to surface in searches from travellers planning their stay.
- website redesign
For a tourism site that already exists but no longer leads to bookings.
- website maintenance
Hosting, backups and updates, including through high season.
- pricing
The available scopes, what each one includes and the price ranges.
- web agency in Sherbrooke
Who I am, how I work and the area I serve.
Reviews
What clients say, on Google
The reviews below come straight from the studio’s Google profile. You can click any name to check the profile yourself.
Get in front of the travellers who are still comparing
Your dates, your prices and your booking link in one place.
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