In an increasingly competitive hospitality world, your booking engine isn’t just a tool, it’s a critical part of your brand experience. With tools like STAAH MAX offering a range of themes (from minimalistic “Atarangi” layouts to more information-rich, mobile-friendly flows), customising your booking engine theme is no longer a “nice-to-have.”
It’s a fundamental lever for conversion, brand identity, and revenue growth.
Here’s why.
1) First Impressions Shape Guest Trust & Booking Decisions
When a guest lands on your website and clicks “Book,” the transition from your brand’s site to the booking engine must feel smooth. A strongly branded booking engine, with the same colors, fonts, logos, and overall design vocabulary as your main website, reinforces trust and reassures visitors they’re still interacting with your hotel, not a third-party system.
- According to industry advice, customisation of booking engine design “promotes brand awareness leading to more conversion.”
- A poorly matched, disjointed booking interface can feel jarring, enough to trigger abandonment.
- Brand consistency across the booking journey also supports trust signals, which are vital when guests are about to share payment details.
In short: the booking engine is often the final touchpoint before conversion. If it feels generic or “not part of your brand,” you risk diluting the emotional connection that convinced them to explore your property in the first place.
2) Mobile-First, Guest-Friendly UX = More Completed Bookings
With a growing share of travelers using smartphones to plan and book stays, mobile friendliness isn’t optional, it’s critical.
- Industry sources note that the majority of hotel website sessions now come from mobile devices.
- A booking engine that’s optimised for mobile, with intuitive date pickers, easily readable text, responsive design, and thumb-friendly buttons, dramatically reduces friction. When the experience is smooth, conversion rates climb; when it’s clunky, guests bounce.
- In fact, booking-engine UX improvements can drop booking abandonment by as much as 30%.
By choosing the right theme (e.g., a mobile-optimized, tile-style layout like “Wairua” in STAAH MAX), you cater to modern travelers and significantly increase the chance that a browsing visitor becomes a paying guest.
3) Clear Information & Smooth Flow Reduce Confusion and Cart Abandonment
Guests abandon bookings when they hit friction: unclear pricing, hidden fees, complicated date pickers, or slow page loading. A customised booking engine theme helps you control the flow and surface only the most relevant information at the right time.
- Simplified, intuitive booking flows help guide guests from selection → extras → payment in a few easy steps.
- One hotel that revamped their booking interface saw bookings jump from 325 to 567 more than tripling confirmed reservations, and revenue rose from US$119,357 to US$217,807.
- The conversion rate increased too, from 2.57% to ~3.0%. For hospitality (where typical web conversion rates hover around 2–3%), that kind of uplift is material.
By hiding non-essential details until needed (as in a minimal layout like “Atarangi”), or by offering more upfront transparency (as in more information-led themes), you can shape user attention, reduce overwhelm, and increase bookings.
4) Direct Bookings = Higher Margins & More Control over Revenue
Every booking made via your own engine, rather than an Online Travel Agency (OTA), helps you retain more revenue and maintain a direct relationship with the guest. Customising your booking engine helps make that direct channel attractive and friction-free.
- According to industry analyses, direct bookings tend to yield higher revenue per booking compared to OTA bookings.
- A custom booking engine empowers upsells and add-ons (e.g., room upgrades, breakfast, spa, transfers) right at the point of booking, increasing average revenue per guest.
- You also retain full guest data, which enables post-stay communications, loyalty programs, and personalized marketing, opportunities typically lost when guests book via OTAs.
Ultimately, customising your booking engine isn’t just a design exercise, it’s a strategic investment in your property’s profitability, guest loyalty and long-term revenue control.
5) Reinforced Brand Identity & Guest Experience – from Discovery to Stay
A consistent brand journey, from your website, to the booking engine, to confirmation emails, helps create a cohesive narrative. It reinforces what your property stands for and helps set guest expectations before they even arrive.
- A custom booking engine allows your hotel to carry your brand identity through the final booking steps, rather than defaulting to a generic platform look.
- This consistency builds confidence in your professionalism, helps avoid confusion or mistrust, and can feed into loyalty over time.
6) Measurable Results – You Can See the Impact
With the right booking engine configuration and theme selection:
- Some properties have seen their booking-engine conversion rates rise from ~2.6% to ~3%, a notable jump.
- Others have more than doubled direct bookings and overall revenue after a UX redesign and booking engine overhaul.
- Less friction means fewer abandoned bookings, and that means more consistent cash flow, especially during peak seasons or promotional campaigns.
Because these changes tend to pay off quickly (sometimes within a few weeks/months), customising your booking engine is among the highest-impact, lowest-friction improvements for any property’s online strategy.
What Good Customisation Looks Like – Leveraging Themes (e.g., with STAAH MAX)
Using a flexible booking engine like STAAH MAX gives you several levers to tailor the guest booking journey to your brand and business needs. Here’s how properties can leverage theme customisation effectively:
- Minimal / Clean Layout (e.g. “Atarangi”) – Hide room details by default for a clean, uncluttered look; guests who want more can expand sections. Great for boutique hotels, minimalist brands, and design-led properties where aesthetics matter.
- Balanced Layout (e.g. “Atarangi II” / “Atarangi III”) – Show basic room descriptions upfront, giving a balance between simplicity and information. Useful when you want to highlight room features and upsell potential without overwhelming the guest.
- Feature-Rich, Tile-Style Layout (e.g. “Wairua”) – Perfect for properties with multiple room types, add-ons, or package deals: the tile layout gives guests an easy comparative view and lets them explore options visually. Also works well on mobile.
- Enhanced Booking Flow with Add-Ons & Progress Tracking (e.g. “Ngātahi”) – For hotels that want to emphasise upsells (room upgrades, breakfast, spa, late checkout) or streamlined checkout, a theme with a step-by-step booking flow, clear progression and add-on options helps drive higher per-guest spend.
How to Customise Your Booking Engine Theme in STAAH MAX
You can customise your booking engine in just a few clicks, no developer required. Here’s the quickest way to do it:
1) Log In
- Open your STAAH MAX Extranet
- Go to the Booking Engine (BE) tab
2) Choose a Theme
- Select BE Themes
- Pick your preferred layout: Atarangi, Atarangi II/III, Wairua, Ngātahi
- Click Save to apply
Tip: Preview each theme to see which one best matches your brand and guest flow.
3) Customise Branding
Go to Colours & Fonts to personalise your look:
- Brand colours
- Font style
- Button style
- Calendar widget
- Background image (optional)
Keep colours and fonts consistent with your website for a seamless guest experience.
4) Test the Flow
After saving:
- Visit your website
- Run a test booking on mobile and desktop
- Check: readability, date selection, CTA clarity, payment screen
Small tweaks here can significantly improve conversion.
This level of customisation ensures that once a guest clicks “Book,” the experience feels like a seamless continuation of your website, not a separate, generic third-party page.
Conclusion: Treat Your Booking Engine as Part of Your Brand – Because It Is
Customising your booking engine theme goes far beyond aesthetics. It directly impacts conversion rates, guest experience, brand perception, and revenue. In a world where many travellers compare multiple options and channels, and where mobile browsing dominates, having a polished, on-brand, easy-to-use booking experience gives you a competitive edge.
With a solution like STAAH MAX, you’re not simply giving guests a way to reserve a room, you’re giving them an experience that reflects your brand values, reduces friction, and increases your hotel’s direct-booking potential.
If you’re ready to take the next step, the first thing to do is review your current booking engine flow: is it aligned with your brand?
Is it mobile-optimised?
Does it feel like “you”?
If the answer to any of these is “no,” then theme customisation, or even a redesign, might just pay for itself.
