How to Create a Travel Website that Inspires Wanderlust

Introduction

If you want to know how to create a travel website, there are many ways to go about it. You can create your site from scratch by hiring a remote developer or using one of the many online web builders. No matter what you choose, you need to remember some points to start your travel agency website. The tips in this blog are tried and tested. So, let's understand what a travel website is and how you can create your website.

What is a travel website?

A travel website is an online platform designed to provide information, services, and resources related to travel and tourism. These websites cater to travellers and tourists seeking destination information, flight and hotel bookings, travel guides, itineraries, and other content. They serve as a one-stop destination for travellers to plan, research, and book their trips conveniently from the comfort of their homes.

Types of Travel Websites

Although travel websites aim to educate viewers and plan for their website, there are various types of travel websites you need to know about. Travel websites come in various forms, catering to traveller's diverse needs and interests worldwide.

Here is the list of travel websites that you need to know. 

• Booking aggregators: Compare prices across airlines, hotels, and car rentals.

• Online travel agencies (OTAs): Comprehensive platforms for booking flights, accommodations, and tours.

• Review and recommendation sites: User-generated reviews for hotels, restaurants, and attractions.

• Sports tourism website: A platform that promotes and facilitates travel experiences centred around sports events and activities.

• Travel blogs: Personal travel experiences, tips, and insights travellers share.

• Destination guides: Information on destinations, local attractions, culture, and activities.

• Adventure travel sites: Focus on adventure sports and wilderness experiences.

• Travel forums: Communities where travellers exchange tips and experiences.

• Budget travel sites: Tips and destinations for affordable travel.

• Solo travel websites: Cater to solo travellers with safety tips and community support.

Now you know there are different travel websites, so knowing what website you want is crucial. Let's see some of the few examples of travel websites.

• Booking.com 

• Expedia

• Airbnb

• TripAdvisor

• Hotels.com

• Agoda

• Tennisreisen-matchpoint

• Travelocity

Do you know: As per the survey done in June 2023, how many visits top travel websites got from desktop and mobile? Booking.com recorded roughly 614 million visitors, more than thrice the visits and the second in the list, TripAdvisor.

How to create a travel website?

Before you start building a travel website, defining your purpose is crucial. What do you want your site to accomplish? Are you trying to sell travel packages or share information with potential clients?

Once you've established the kind of website you want (and can afford), lay out some goals for yourself. Goals can include traffic, conversions, and revenue. Make sure that goals are realistic and attainable within the time frame set out in this plan. Once you have created a business plan, it's important to stick with it.

Travel websites are very competitive, so don't let your website fall by the wayside as you try other ventures. Ensure you're committed to keeping this venture going and working towards achieving your goals. You also had to decide whether to hire a remote developer or choose a ready-made template for your website, which we will discuss later in the blog.

Understanding Your Niche and Audience

After you have what type of website you need, it is time to research the audience you want to target. It's essential to know these details. It ensures you will provide them with the best possible product or service.

Secondly, consider what your competition is up to. What other travel websites are out there? What do they offer? How do they differ from one another? Are they better than yours? How can you improve them?

Try not to think too far ahead when it comes time to plan out what kind of website design will work best for your business; instead, focus on getting started with something basic before making any major changes later in the development stages if needed.

Choose Your URL and Hosting Platform

Now after planning and researching the competition, it's time to choose a domain name that is easy to remember and relevant. Your website title should accurately reflect the content on your site. You'll also need to decide what type of hosting platform will work best for you; some options include WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix.com.

Hire a Remote Developer or Use a Readymade Template

If you want to create a travel website but do not have the time or skills to do so yourself, then hiring a remote developer is probably your best bet. The good thing about this option is that you can get a high-quality product at an affordable price.

Another option would be using ready-made templates for building travel websites like WordPress themes. But if you want a more authentic option, then hiring someone is a better choice. You will undoubtedly find the best-designed ready-made themes at great prices. 

But here is a catch, often, a well-designed website is already used by dozens, even thousands of users, resulting in the same-looking websites. And due to the same types of websites used, the chance of getting recognition by search engines is tough.

Choose the Right Theme for Your Travel Agency Website

When you're ready to start building your website, you need to choose the appropriate theme. The theme will be the foundation of your travel agency or website. And its design plays an immense role in creating a professional image for your brand.

Here are some things to consider when choosing an appropriate theme:

• A clean and professional look 

• Matching with your brand identity and colours 

• Ease of customization (customizable elements like fonts, colours, etc.)

• Features such as responsive design (adjusting according to device size)

• Ease of updating the website (many themes come with built-in SEO features)

Features to use on travel website 

A travel website should have various features to enhance user experience and provide valuable information to travellers. Some essential features to include are:

• Search and booking functionality

• Interactive maps

• User reviews and ratings

• Travel guides and blogs

• Social media integration

• Multi-language and currency support

• Weather information

• Responsive design

• Travel alerts and notifications

• Travel insurance and visa information

Let’s also discuss some things you must consider when creating a travel website.

Create User-Friendly Layout

Now that you have a basic idea of how to create a travel website let's look at some of the most important elements that need to be included.

When creating an easy-to-navigate site, one of the first things you should do is include an intuitive navigation bar. This will help users find their way around your site and ensure they don't get lost in all the information on your pages.

The next step is making sure that everything looks good. You want people who visit your page or app from mobile devices to have an enjoyable experience, so make sure there are no large images or blocks of text cluttering up their screens with too much information at once. Also, try not to use fonts larger than 16px so these smaller screens can read everything without straining their eyes too much.

Integrate Social Media Integration and Blogs

Social media integration and blogging are two of the most important parts of your website. They help you to connect with your customers, build trust and create an online community around your brand. Social media integration involves integrating Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks on your website so that users can share content easily through these platforms.

This is great for building brand awareness and increasing traffic to your website. 

Blogging helps build authority in any industry by creating original content that engages readers while providing value-added material, such as tips & tricks related specifically to whatever niche category.

Creating Engaging Content

The content on your website is what will ultimately engage your audience and convert them into customers. Blogging is a great way to build relationships with potential customers, and it can also help you increase traffic to your site by generating backlinks from other sites that have published articles or interviews about you or your business.

Make it Mobile Ready.

The next step is to make your website mobile-friendly. Mobile devices are now the most popular way to access the internet, and your site must be optimized for this growing audience. With responsive design, you can create a single website that works on all devices (from small smartphones to large desktop monitors) by using CSS3 media queries to alter the layout of your web page based on the size and resolution of each viewing device.

Ensuring Website Security and Performance

To ensure that your website is secure, use an SSL certificate. This will encrypt all data sent between the user's browser and your server. 

Next, consider using a Content Delivery Network (CDN). This service delivers your website files from one or more locations worldwide instead of storing them all on one home server. It can be used for images, scripts, and stylesheets so that users get faster loading times no matter where they are located on your servers, and it's relatively inexpensive.

Technologies to Use For Travel Websites

Using scalable and advanced technologies to make a travel website is necessary. The idea of using advanced technologies is that it will be easy to update in the future and can look new and fresh even years after development.

• HTML5

• CSS3

• JavaScript (jQuery) and jQuery plugins, like Masonry and Bootstrap

• MySQL database

• Laravel Development

• PHP

• WordPress development

Case study

We worked with various brands and recently created a website for the travel industry. This case study aims to provide you with an understanding of how travel websites are developed.

We recently worked on a sports tourism website and developed a purposeful website for our client, “Matchpoint Sports.” Like what a travel website needs. We used JavaScript and WordPress to build the website. The reason to choose JavaScript is to make a website lighter and more engaging for users and make it easy to navigate.

Later we also added all necessary features to the website with webpages that are crucial for any travel website. We added webpages that resonate with the services Matchpoint Sports provided with images of accommodations and places they take to the travellers.

Conclusion

Ultimately, it's worth it to create your travel website. You can use it to build your brand and get more site traffic. This step-by-step guide will create a travel website that helps you grow your business. Remember, the key to a successful travel website is authenticity. Embrace the power of storytelling using blogs, leverage social media, and interact with your audience to create a thriving community of travel enthusiasts.

Also, if you need help building your dream travel website, feel free to contact us for the best web development solution.

This article is also a good read for website development: Is Laravel Fit for Your Web Development Project?

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