Booking website design: what makes a visitor book

Why your own booking website

A booking website is a site where a guest can see what you offer, pick dates, see the price, and book and pay without leaving. You can take bookings two ways. Through a platform such as Airbnb Experiences, Booking.com, Viator or GetYourGuide, which finds guests for you and keeps a share. Or on your own site, where you keep the booking and the guest’s details.

Airbnb typically takes 20% of an Experience, the rate it publishes. Retreat Guru’s marketplace keeps 14% of the retreat price, and BookRetreats lets you choose a commission per listing, with 15% as its own example. Booking.com, Viator and GetYourGuide publish no single rate: it is set in your contract and depends on country. As an example, on a €100 booking at Airbnb Experiences’ 20%, the platform keeps €20.

A direct booking is not free either. A card payment costs from 1.5% + €0.25 for standard European cards, at Stripe’s published rate. The booking fee calculator lets you add your own numbers and see a year of both side by side.

The rest of this guide covers eight things on your own site that affect whether a visitor books. Three have published numbers behind them. The other five are our judgement from rebuilding booking sites, and are marked that way. The pictures are examples made up for this guide, not screenshots of real clients.

Show the full price before anything else.

Show the total price, with taxes and fees, before the guest has to decide anything.

Baymard Institute asks online shoppers why they abandoned an order. In its latest survey of US online shoppers 40% said extra costs were too high, and 12% said they could not see the total cost upfront. Those are shop figures, not booking figures. We assume a booking checkout behaves the same way. So show the price per night, session or person on the card, and the total with taxes and fees as soon as dates are picked.

Check yours. Pick any date on your site. Can you see the final total, taxes included, before you type a name or an email?

Shop figures from Baymard’s latest survey of US online shoppers. Source: Baymard Institute, cart abandonment rate statistics.

Give every screen one next step.

Make one action the obvious one on every screen, and make it look like a button.

On a phone, a guest sees one screen at a time. If Check dates, Enquire, Call us and Join the waitlist all look the same, the page asks them to choose before they have decided anything. Pick the one step you want on each screen and style it as the main button. Keep the others quieter, and on a phone keep the main button low on the screen, where a thumb can reach it.

Check yours. Open the page on your phone. Look only at the first screen. Can you tell which button you are meant to press?

Our judgement, from rebuilding booking sites. No published number behind it.

Keep the booking on your own site.

Keep the guest on your own address, with your name and your look, from the first click to the confirmation.

When the booking step jumps to another address with another logo, some guests stop and wonder whether they are still in the right place. If your booking system has an API, your own site can show the dates, the prices and the form itself, so the guest never leaves your address.

Check yours. Click Book now. Does the address bar still show your own domain, and does your logo stay in the corner?

Our judgement, from rebuilding booking sites. No published number behind it.

Show your real place.

Use photos of the actual place and the actual people, big, in the first screen.

Guests are choosing a place to spend days and money in. A stock photo shows them nothing about your place. Show your own room, your own studio, your own host in the first screen, and make it large. Add one specific line: “Six rooms above the lake” says more than “A magical escape”.

Check yours. Look at the first screen. Could that photo only be your place?

Our judgement, from rebuilding booking sites. No published number behind it.

Ask for less.

Ask for what you need to take the booking and nothing more. No account needed.

Baymard’s latest survey of US online shoppers found that 18% of them left because they had to create an account, and 17% because the checkout was too long or complicated. It counts 23.48 form elements in the average US checkout and says 12 to 14 is enough. Ask for a name, an email and the dates now. Everything else can wait for the confirmation email.

Check yours. Count the fields between Check dates and Pay. Could any of them wait until after the booking?

Shop figures from Baymard’s latest survey of US online shoppers. Source: Baymard Institute, cart abandonment rate statistics.

Load fast on a phone.

Aim for the main image in 2.5 seconds or less, and taps answered in 200 milliseconds or less.

Google sets three targets for how fast a page should feel, measured on real visitors at the 75th percentile: the main image or text in 2.5 seconds or less (Largest Contentful Paint), a tap answered in 200 milliseconds or less (Interaction to Next Paint), and nothing jumping around, 0.1 or less (Cumulative Layout Shift). You can test your booking page on a phone with PageSpeed Insights, for free.

Check yours. Run your booking page through PageSpeed Insights, on mobile. Are the main image and the taps in the green?

The thresholds above are Google’s own. The numbers in the drawing are an example. Source: Google web.dev, Web Vitals.

Answer the doubt beside the button.

Put the three questions guests have right next to the button: can I cancel, what is included, who looks after me.

The moment before Book is when a guest doubts. If the answer sits two clicks away on another page, some will not go and look. Three short lines next to the button take very little space. Which three depends on your place: for a retreat it might be the cancellation rule, what is included and who hosts; for a tour, the meeting point and the group size.

Check yours. Stand at the Book button. Can you see the cancellation rule without scrolling or clicking?

Our judgement, from rebuilding booking sites. No published number behind it.

Say what happens after Book.

Confirm the booking on the page, with the dates and the amount, and say what arrives next.

“Thank you” leaves a guest wondering whether it worked. A confirmation should repeat the dates and the amount paid, say an email is on its way, and offer one useful next step, such as what to bring or how to get there.

Check yours. Make a test booking. Does the last screen show the dates, the amount and what comes next?

Our judgement, from rebuilding booking sites. No published number behind it.

Sources

Checked 26 October 2026. Platform rates change, so check the page before you rely on a number.

• Baymard Institute, cart abandonment rate statisticsThe 40%, 12%, 18%, 17% and 23.48 figures. Baymard’s latest survey of US online shoppers. These are shop figures, not booking figures.
• Google web.dev, Web VitalsLargest Contentful Paint 2.5 s, Interaction to Next Paint 200 ms, Cumulative Layout Shift 0.1, all at the 75th percentile of real visits.
• Airbnb help: host service feesExperiences: typically 20% of the price the host sets, withheld from the payout. The rate Airbnb publishes.
• Booking.com partner help: commissionNo single rate is published. The commission is set in your contract and depends on country.
• Viator supplier sign-upNo single rate is published. Viator says the rate varies by location.
• GetYourGuide supplier termsNo single rate is published. It is set per supplier account and varies by country.
• Retreat Guru: marketplace host policies14% of the total retreat price when a guest books through its marketplace.
• BookRetreats help: how fees workYou choose the commission per listing. The help page uses 15% as its example.
• Stripe pricing (Europe)Standard European cards, from 1.5% + EUR 0.25.