The Six Senses experience goes digital
The World’s #1 Hotel Brand Needs a New Website
Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas was (and still is) the world’s #1 hotel brand (Travel + Leisure). Among guests, they were known to be a unique and exclusive refuge where life could be celebrated in a balanced way through an integrated approach to wellness and sustainability.
Despite their reputation, the brand’s online presence did not reflect the brand values nor the experience that guests knew as distinctive to the destinations. They required a new platform that would improve digital metrics and ultimately allow guests to experience the spirit of Six Senses from the first click.
An Integrated Wellness Positioning Strategy
Given the mismatch between the perception of the brand by hotel visitors and web visitors, we needed to evoke the core essence of the experience and bring it to life across our online communication. Six Senses’ holistic and harmonious approach to life, which guests not only perceive but experience within themselves, inspired us to centre our conceptual approach around empathy. This sense of being at one with the things you experience and feel ran as a red thread through our architecture, style and content.
Architecture Overhaul
We created a more contemporary story-inspired structure to bring together ease of user experience and modular content in a way that connects emotionally with the audience and expresses the brand values. New inspirational and topical story topics were seamlessly combined with brand experiences and informative content, allowing each user to experience their online travel journey interactively, proactively and harmoniously.
In developing our approach, each element of the site was studied for a specific purpose, both from a functional and messaging point of view. This, coupled with a responsive and adaptive design, ensured for an engaging, inviting and inspirational connection, which better highlighted the brand values and increased brand recognition and awareness.
Integrating Stories & Experiences
Two key content elements that brought Six Senses to life online were the use of stories and experiences. As everyone can relate to stories, they were used to trigger an authentic conversational relationship between visitors and the brand. On the other hand, experiences presented Six Senses as a source of “transformational travel”, highlighting the long-lasting impact of a stay at the hotel.
Both stories and experiences helped communicate the brand values in a comprehensible and emotional way, while responding to guests’ increasing need for stays that impact them at a deeper level.
Design & Style Evolution
Rather than applying a strict and rigid grid, each of our content sections were designed to have a slightly different layout. This ensured navigating was a dynamic experience that gave rise to a sense of discovery, encouraging our web guests to continue exploring the site.
Additionally, a more widespread pairing of white and grey presented an open and intimate design, typography was rebalanced to improve readability and character, photography and film assets were updated to connect with the audience at a deeper level and illustrations were employed to provide an empathetic, human aspect.
A Touch of Personalisation
In order for our website guests to truly be at one with the content, we created a one-to-one visitor experience. Every user is now faced with a personalised website – a content arrangement based on a variety of data considerations, such as if they are a returning visitor, upcoming guest or viewing content in a specific country. This customer-centric design feature introduces a very human element, while attracting more engaged customers and improving conversion rates.
Harmony Through to the Booking Experience
To ensure a carefree booking process, the new site integrated booking capability within the look and feel. This dramatically improved the user experience, making the process seamless from checking availability to checking out. It also provided practical results for Six Senses, helping to reduce the purchase funnel and increase total booking revenue.