Redesigned for Revenue: Driving 32% year-on-year digital growth
Best Western Hotels GB is one of the largest hotel groups in the UK, with more than 250 independently owned and operated properties. They came to LION+MASON with a commercial challenge: their existing website was underperforming, leaking revenue to OTAs and failing to meet the expectations of the modern digital traveller.
The website had fallen behind. A dated interface, a multi-step booking journey that caused drop-off, and a lack of meaningful value for logged-in users were all combining to push potential guests towards third-party booking platforms. Best Western needed a fundamental rethink of the digital experience, not a cosmetic refresh, with a clear focus on driving direct bookings and growing online revenue.
A rigorous, evidence-led process ran across five phases, prioritising deep discovery and iterative testing before moving into high-fidelity design. The aim throughout was to re-architect the entire user journey around a single outcome: converting more lookers into bookers.
The project began by interrogating the business challenge properly. A combination of analytics data, stakeholder workshops and qualitative user research identified the critical barriers to growth: a dated UI, a booking journey with too many steps, and limited incentives for users to log in or book direct.
A forensic UX audit of the existing platform was carried out, competitors were benchmarked against best-in-class standards, current booking flows were mapped against the desired experience, and in-depth interviews with real guests surfaced unmet needs and behavioural patterns. The result was a clear, evidence-led strategic roadmap before any design work began.
The core user journeys were redefined with conversion at the centre. The site architecture was restructured to make hotel search more intuitive, the booking flow was streamlined to reduce steps to checkout, and clearer pathways to Rewards benefits were built to drive loyalty and repeat visits.
Early concepts were developed as interactive wireframes and tested thoroughly, validating the structure and flow before moving into high-fidelity design.
Every key journey was validated with real travellers before development began. High-fidelity prototypes stress-tested the search, selection and checkout flows, measuring user confidence and task completion rates along the way.
Testing confirmed significant efficiency gains in the booking journey, identified and resolved points of confusion in the hotel selection process, and validated the new Rewards hierarchy with both new and returning guests. Each round of feedback fed directly into the next iteration.
The Best Western visual language was evolved around two principles: modern warmth and booking clarity. The goal was a fresh, accessible visual style that feels welcoming while keeping the user focused on the practical decisions they need to make.
An elevated use of photography drives emotional engagement with destinations, paired with a high-contrast accessible colour palette and a clear typographic hierarchy that guides users through the conversion funnel without friction.
High-fidelity UI designs were delivered for all key templates, backed by a modular digital design system built for scalability. This gives the Best Western internal team the ability to spin up new pages and features rapidly without breaking consistency.
Deliverables included fully responsive UI designs for mobile, tablet and desktop, an interactive component library, and comprehensive design specifications to support a smooth developer handover.
Since launch, the redesigned platform has transformed Best Western’s digital performance and become the primary driver of direct revenue growth.
+32% year-on-year online revenue+20% conversion rate year-on-year+18% increase in website traffic
These figures reflect a genuine shift away from costly OTAs towards higher-margin direct bookings, with continued month-on-month growth driven by the improved booking experience.
