New Shangri-La Hotels Website is Nice. Boring, and Nice.
Chris · June 21, 2007
On June 19, 2007 Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts sent out a press release for the launch of their new website. With construction on Vancouver’s own Shangri-La property in full swing, we decided to head over to the new digs to see where the hotel will live, online.
Let’s premise further comments with the fact that the website cost a whopping $2M to develop (really?). Was it worth the expense? Not to my mind.
While there was nothing overtly terrible about the site, it didn’t exactly make me want to shout accolades either. The colour tones are too dark for me, and the site in general doesn’t evoke any excitement at all. The booking engine looks ok, but again, it’s uber-boring. No social media elements, community building initiatives...nothing at all other than some pictures and a link to the weather at the local regions. Wow, that’s it?
Canadian e-travel marketing guru Jens Thraenhart wrote a review on Shangri-La’s brand new corporate website yesterday and he voiced similar concerns:
“...I was hoping that Shangri-La would be able to transfer their great hotel experience online, but this seems little more than a hip (the site is designed in black), but boring Web 1.0 website, which is fine...but for $2 Million???...”
Agreed, Jens.
Take a peek for yourself and then consider asking where YOUR website budget is going!
Linkage
Shangri-La Hotels website re-design [Hotel-Online]
