Corinthia London is one of the most prestigious, 5-star luxury hotels in the UK’s capital, just steps from Trafalgar Square. ESPA Life at Corinthia is the impressive, award-winning spa spread across 4 floors within the hotel, dedicated to enhancing wellness to new heights.
ESPA Life at Corinthia approached KIJO with a clear brief to redesign their website; one that demonstrated the scale and experiential element of the spa, that was sensory and immersive. This was coupled alongside the goals of increasing engagement and conversions.
increase in session time on first week of launch compared to previous month
increase in users clicking through to booking platform in first month of launch
The KIJO team set to work to design, develop and build a beautiful, high-end, luxurious website that would improve engagement. We introduced expansive, high-quality imagery across the site to promote an enticing and eye-catching visual experience. We provided art direction for new, high-resolution photography that was shot specifically for the website. This ensured the images captured truly represented the spa’s size, scale and facilities. We could also ensure the image’s quality standard was high and thus true to the brand.
In addition, we also used sophisticated, serene video which plays as the user scrolls and moves through the site. This not only exudes a calming, sensory experience but also keeps a user on site for longer. We also selectively used video in various other locations of the website with the same intention.
Then, we also implemented entrance animations on all text and images across the website. We married this with scrolling techniques like pinned scrolling, sticky elements and satisfyingly smart hover interactions over elements like ‘Services’. Of course, the ultimate goal was to increase engagement but this also helped bolster a truly immersive experience, allowing us to tell a story that encompassed the luxury brand, product and service.
Whilst maintaining a luxury feel, we optimised the website’s Call to Actions (CTAs) to help increase conversion rates on the ESPA Life at Corinthia site. This included ensuring that the navigation had a primary CTA; to book an experience. This was accessible whenever you scrolled anywhere on the site.
Then, across all page footers, we placed a mixture of primary and secondary CTAs with some pages even hosting in-content CTAs. These in-content CTAs included prompts like ‘Download a Brochure’, ‘Visit the 3D Experience’ and ‘Visit Treatments’. We also implemented related product and service call outs on specific pages. For example, if a user was visiting a therapy page, they would be shown other related therapies too.
We streamlined the site’s navigation completely, enabling easier access to its core pages. Unfortunately, the previous website contained many page iterations that lacked purpose or intention, so we implemented categorisation of the pages into ‘Facilities’, ‘Treatments’, ‘Experiences’, ‘Spa’, ‘People’ and ‘Media’. Then, all sub pages could naturally flow into these top level pages.
We also made sure that there was ample social proof visible on the website to promote brand trust and assurance. That’s because consumers are far more likely to invest in a brand or product if other people have done so successfully, and thus can greatly contribute to conversion rate. So, we introduced client feedback and testimonials in the Media section and presented the awards won by the spa on the homepage. At the foot of each page, we placed prominent contact details to give the spa an approachable, personable feel whilst also pushing for the desired conversion rates.
In addition, we used colour to clearly sign post key sections of the website. For example, we used a subtle, muted brown and earthy colour palette to represent ‘Treatments’ and a teal-like blue and cooler palette for ‘Facilities’. We chose to utilise colour in this way to only make the user journey clearer, but marry the luxurious brand tone with nature, natural materials and thus mindfulness, promoting a sense of calm and serenity.
ESPA Life at Corinthia’s goals for the website were clear; to increase conversions, engagement and capture the true offering and feel of the spa.
Key, high-end design elements like the full-screen, striking imagery and serene videos helped us capture the user and contributed to a significant growth in engagement. Using Google Analytics, we tracked how long visitors were staying on the website (known as “session time”) one week after the site was launched – this is a strong indicator of engagement. Session time had already increased by 27.6% compared to the same time period in the previous month.
In terms of increasing conversion rates, features like prominent, frequent CTAs and straightforward, easy navigation helped us capture an extensive improvement for the ESPA Life at Corinthia site. Within the first 30 days of launching the new site, there was a 26% increase in users clicking through to the booking platform compared to the previous month.
By honing in on our love of luxury design and meeting this with our substantial expertise in web design, the KIJO team have undoubtedly delivered a high-end, luxury website. It enchants its user and confidently invites them to stay, explore and ultimately invest in the brand and its service offering.
