Room to grow

Help with a new website boosted this Dales hotel's sales by 25%

A new interactive website, sourced with help from Business Link Yorkshire and funded by a grant from Yorkshire Forward, has helped the Coniston Hotel in the Yorkshire Dales to revolutionise the way it does business, to increase sales, and to employ more people.

The family-run, independently owned hotel is set on a private country estate and offers leisure breaks, weddings and corporate events.

"We needed a new website..."

“We had a very basic website, which didn’t really sell our services adequately and didn’t allow content to be changed easily. We needed a better website, linked to a customer database, so we could better respond to sales enquiries.”

With help from Business Link Yorkshire, a new website was sourced, and a grant from Yorkshire Forward made the whole process even easier. The new website better reflects the hotel’s image, with lots of photography and a 360-degree tour feature. Special offers can be uploaded and changed easily, and the site has been optimised to feature high up in search-engine results.

"Sales are up by 25% since the new site went live..."

“Since the new website went live and we employed a marketing manager, sales have increased by 25% and we’ve taken on two additional staff to cope with increased business. It’s reduced how many brochures we send out by post—saving time, postage and printing costs.”

A recent survey showed that 17% of bookings originated via the new website. 2008’s wedding bookings were up 50% on 2007, thanks in no small part to the website.

“We can now monitor which people download our brochure, and make follow-up calls to ask if people would like to come in for a look round. It gives us a database of clients we can invite back for a return stay when we have a weekend-break package on offer, or an event coming up—the new site has really changed the way we do business,” says Tracey.