Work / Aurelia Hotels
Booking a room should feel like entering one
Direct-booking experience for a five-property boutique hotel group — a booking flow calm enough to match the lobbies it sells, cutting OTA dependence by a third.
- Category
- E-Commerce
- Shipped
- January 20, 2026
30→41%
Direct bookings
+56%
Mobile checkout completion
7 mo
Payback period
Challenge
Aurelia's five properties photograph beautifully and booked terribly. The booking engine was a third-party iframe that looked like airline software from 2011, so 70% of reservations arrived through OTAs taking 18% commission — on rooms guests had discovered through Aurelia's own Instagram.
Solution
We designed and built a direct-booking flow as considered as the hotels themselves: full-bleed room narratives, availability that answers in milliseconds, and a three-step reservation path with no surprises at the end. The property pages treat each hotel as a story — arrival, rooms, table, neighborhood — rather than an amenities grid.
Result
Direct bookings rose from 30% to 41% of total reservations in the first two quarters — commission savings that paid for the build inside seven months. Mobile checkout completion rose 56%.