TL;DR Key takeaways
- Most summer bookings start on a phone, so test your booking flow on one first.
- OTAs bring discovery; your own site should reward people who book direct.
- Write for visitors who read English as a second language, and add a map that actually helps.
- Rainy-day content earns clicks when the weather turns, which it will.
It is early July, the Ring of Kerry is filling with coaches and the car park at the Cliffs of Moher is busy from mid-morning. If you run a guesthouse in Kenmare, a surf school in Lahinch or a café in Doolin, your website is doing some of its most important work right now, and much of it is happening on a small screen.
I build sites for tourism businesses along the west coast, and the same handful of problems come up every summer. Here is how I would fix them.
Start with the phone in the car park
Picture your real customer: standing beside a hire car in Dingle, one bar of signal, trying to find a room for tonight. That person will not pinch and zoom through a desktop layout. They want three things quickly: availability, price and a button.
- Put a clear Check availability or Book now button in the first screen on mobile, not buried under a hero slideshow.
- Keep the booking form short. Dates, guests, name, email, pay. Anything else can wait for the confirmation email.
- Make the phone number tap-to-call. Plenty of visitors still prefer to ring, especially for same-day bookings.
- Compress your images. Big photos of Skellig Michael look lovely on office Wi-Fi and painful on a rural mobile connection.
Direct bookings versus the big travel sites
I am not going to tell you to leave the online travel agents. They bring people who have never heard of you, and for many small operators they are a genuine source of business. But every booking they take carries a commission, and they own the relationship with your guest.
Your own website is where you win the second visit and the guest who has already found you. Give people a reason to book direct:
- A best-rate promise, or a small extra such as a late checkout or breakfast included.
- Honest, specific photos of the actual rooms, not stock shots of Killarney National Park.
- A clear cancellation policy written in plain English, so nobody has to hunt for it.
Your website should be the place where booking direct feels like the smart choice.
Visitors who do not read English first
Kerry and Clare welcome a lot of guests from mainland Europe and beyond. You do not always need a full translation to serve them well. Short sentences, clear prices in euro, simple headings and dates written out in full (8 July, not 8/7) go a long way. If a large share of your guests come from one country, a single well-translated landing page in that language is often a better investment than machine-translating the whole site.
Maps that actually help
A pin on an embedded map is a start, but think about how people really arrive. Tell them which road to take from Ennis or Killarney, where to park, whether a sat nav takes them down an unsuitable boreen, and how long the walk is from the nearest bus stop. Make sure your Google Business Profile matches the address and opening hours on your site exactly. That consistency matters for local search, and it stops guests turning up at the wrong gate.
Weather-proof content
Anyone who has spent a summer on the Wild Atlantic Way knows the forecast can change by lunchtime. Content that answers what can we do when it rains? is useful, it gets shared, and it brings in searches at exactly the moment people are looking for something to do. A short guide to indoor options near you, the Burren on a moody day or a list of cosy pubs with music will earn more goodwill than another generic page about the scenery.
A quick summer check
If you are not sure how your site holds up, a free website check will flag the obvious mobile and speed problems before the August rush. And if you are planning a rebuild for next season, have a look at how I approach web design in Kerry and web design in Clare. Most small tourism sites I build come in under €350, which is usually less than a handful of commission payments.
The businesses that do best on the west coast are not always the biggest. They are the ones whose website answers a tired, hungry, rain-soaked visitor's questions in about ten seconds.