Client work · Hospitality · 2023–2024

Sayaji Hotels

A hotel group with four brands and 42 hotels, brought together in one website with one way to book.

Role
Research, UX/UI design, frontend
Type
Client work · live
Scope
Audit → design system → frontend
Live at
sayajihotels.com
01The problem

Scattered sites, mismatched looks and booking buried pages deep. Guests didn’t see one brand.

02What we did

An audit, interviews, guest journeys, one architecture, a warm editorial design system, and the frontend.

03Where it landed

Live at sayajihotels.com: one site for 42 hotels, with booking on the very first screen.

Visit sayajihotels.com ↗Read the story
Chapter 01The problem

A guest who loved the brand, and still went elsewhere.

Sayaji grew hotel by hotel and brand by brand, and its web presence grew the same way. Each piece made sense on its own. Together they made the brand invisible to its own guests.

A guest, planning a weekend

She needs a hotel in Pune for a wedding. She stayed at a Sayaji once and loved it, so she searches.

hotel in pune for a wedding weekend

A Sayaji hotel siteOne look
Travel appSayaji Pune ★ · free cancellation
Another Sayaji pageA different look again
Another booking siteSayaji Pune · lowest price!

The first click

The page she lands on looks nothing like the Sayaji she remembers. She isn’t sure it’s even the same company.

Sayajigold, serif, slow
SAYAJI HOTELblue, bold, busy

The booking button

It opens another system, in a new window, with a form from another decade.

Online reservation system

Check availability* opens in a new window

Five minutes later

She books through a travel app instead. Sayaji gets the guest, and pays a commission for her.

Travel app

Booking confirmed ✓

Sayaji Pune · 2 nights · 2 guests

The guest is happy. The hotel pays commission on a guest who was looking for it in the first place.

What’s live today

One site for 42 hotels across four brands, and a booking bar on the very first screen.

≡

SAYAJIYours, Truly.

📅 Fri 14 – Sun 16

🏠 Sayaji Pune

👤 2 guests

⌕ Reserve
Chapter 02What we found

What the audit and the teams told us.

We went through the existing sites page by page, spoke with the brand and property teams, and mapped how guests get from a search to a reservation.

01

Many hotels, no single brand

The group spans several brands and dozens of hotels. Guests who loved one stay rarely realised the others were family.

So One site, one look, that every hotel belongs to.

02

Booking was buried

Getting from “this looks lovely” to “show me rooms” took too many steps and too many pages.

So The booking bar belongs on the very first screen.

03

The photos do the selling

Lobbies, rooms and banquet halls are what make guests fall for a hotel. Small thumbnails waste them.

So Let photography fill the screen, and keep text readable on top of it.

04

A hotel is more than rooms

Weddings, dining, investors and careers all needed a home, without crowding the booking journey.

So One clear booking path, with everything else a calm scroll away.

Chapter 03Three decisions

Three calls you can see on the live site.

The brief was luxury that never makes you wonder what to do next. Each of these is live at sayajihotels.com today. Try them here.

Decision 01

Book from the very first screen

Hotel sites love a cinematic homepage and hide booking behind a “book now” page. Every extra page is a chance for the guest to wander off to a travel app.

  • A separate reservation page
  • Only a “book now” button in the nav
  • A booking card right on the hero

Guests arrive ready to book. Dates, any of the 42 hotels and the guest count sit on the first screen, so “this looks lovely” becomes “show me rooms” in a few taps.

👤 1 guest
⌕ Reserve

Pick dates and a hotel. Everything happens on the first screen.

Decision 02

Glass over photography

The photos sell the hotel, so they should fill the screen. But text placed on a busy lobby photo becomes unreadable.

  • Solid panels over small photos
  • Text straight on top of the photo
  • Frosted glass over full-bleed photography

A warm, blurred layer keeps every word readable on any image, while the lobby, rooms and halls stay visible behind it. The nav and the booking card share the same treatment.

Gourmet dining redefined

Every meal crafted by our chefs, with local, fresh ingredients.

The photo shines, and the words disappear into it.

Decision 03

Type with a sense of place

Hospitality type often lands at one of two extremes: a generic corporate sans, or decorative scripts that are hard to read.

  • One clean sans for everything
  • A decorative script for headlines
  • An elegant serif for headlines, a quiet sans for reading

A serif in spaced capitals gives headlines heritage and calm, and a quiet sans carries the reading. On a warm cream background, it feels like a hotel, not a booking engine.

Hotel full of stories, a building with a soul

In a world where luxury often came at the cost of sustainability, we set out to redefine it.

Clean, and could be any business on earth.

Chapter 04The design system

A small system, applied everywhere.

Two warm colours, two frosted surfaces, one radius and two typefaces. Every page, from rooms to weddings to investors, is built from the same few pieces.

cream#fcf8f5
ink#61534e
frostCardrgba(61,51,45,0.59)
frostNavrgba(0,0,0,0.5)

Canela

For headlines, in spaced capitals.

PT Sans for everything you read.

Radius
24px
Glass blur
8px · 10px
Chapter 05How it came together

From an audit to launch.

  1. 01Audit

    Reviewed the existing sites and booking journeys.

  2. 02Listen

    Interviews with the brand and property teams.

  3. 03Map

    Guest journeys from the first search to the reservation.

  4. 04Structure

    One information architecture for every brand and hotel.

  5. 05Design

    A warm, editorial system: serif headlines, frosted glass, full-bleed photography.

  6. 06Build

    A responsive frontend, a usability review, and launch.

Chapter 06It’s live

It’s live. Go and book a room.

This isn’t a concept. The site we designed and built is the official Sayaji Hotels website.

Live

42 hotels

Sayaji 8 · Effotel 10 · Enrise 23 · Amber 1

Live

One booking bar

Dates, hotel and guests on the first screen.

Live

More than rooms

Dining, Shubh Vivah weddings, investors and careers.

Live

Responsive

The same frosted, editorial feel on every screen size.

Visit sayajihotels.com ↗Start a project like this
Luxury isn’t more decoration. It’s never having to wonder where you are, or what to do next.

[ Questions ]

Asked often.

An audit of the existing sites, guest journeys, one information architecture for every brand and hotel, a warm editorial design system, and the responsive frontend that is live at sayajihotels.com.

42 hotels across four brands: Sayaji, Effotel, Enrise and Amber.

Yes. Dates, hotel and guests are on the homepage itself, so booking starts on the very first screen.

Next productXLR8 PrintApproved stories in. Press-ready pages out.Newspaper productionSaaS · Web + AndroidExplore XLR8 Print