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Millbrook Resort

+94% site visitors
+69% bookings revenue

New Zealand's leading five-star Millbrook Resort and Spa is in Queenstown, nestled by the Remarkables Mountain Range. With multiple awards and countless amenities, the resort needed a way to showcase the wide range of Millbrook propositions to a diverse range of prospective guests. In a highly competitive and crowded marketplace of luxury hotels and destinations, the team's digital investments had to show clear returns not just in sales conversion, but also add value to the entire customer experience.

The Challenge

With seemingly endless dining choices, experiences and luxury accommodations, how can we showcase everything yet make it intuitive?

Four tiers of luxury accommodations, five restaurants and cafes, eleven onsite experiences and an eighteen-hole golf course are just some of the amenities on offer to guests at Millbrook Resort. With a wide range of client demographics, each with different tastes and interests, Millbrook needed a way to prioritise what was showcased and optimise conversion. Furthermore, the new website needed to be a platform for future innovations that help bring the luxury experience into a new digital era.

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The Approach

To create a performance-centric digital solution, the BBT team synthesised steering ideas that focused on what mattered most.

1

Discovery

We began by surveying Millbrook's customer base to ensure that the solution we built would fully accommodate their needs. This data and our UI and UX research showed us that the website didn't need to be completely overhauled. Instead, we saw that there were opportunities where a change in interface design would significantly impact their revenue and the customer experience.

Next: Information Architecture

2

Information Architecture

To ensure we present Millbrook's vast array of offerings in a way that meets the customers' needs and interests, we prioritised information based on survey insights. The sitemap was restructured to ensure category information was easily accessible and key amenities were set at the primary or secondary level.

Next: Iterative innovation

3

Iterative innovation

The project was a significant change to Millbrook's digital presence, and it was clear from the outset of the need to bring the resort's staff and customers on the journey. Further innovations were thought of but implemented incrementally, ensuring users had time to get comfortable with the changes whilst testing the value of each investment.

Design and Experience (UI/UX)

Simple and streamlined, letting the beauty of Millbrook speak for itself.

Collaborating with the marketing team, we created customer personas for the different types of guests that frequent the resort. By putting ourselves in their shoes, we were able to consider their digital behaviours and come up with the best way to present information in an intuitive and digestible way. For Millbrook, showcasing the beauty of the resort was a priority; therefore, we ensured bold full-screen images were used throughout the site, limiting the amount of written content and using subtle devices to assist with content navigation.

Despite the wide array of offerings and restaurant sub-brands, we created a streamlined UI that is consistent throughout, ensuring Millbrook as the destination remains the focal point.

Development

Digital functionalities for every type of user

The new website was an opportunity to add modern functionalities and integrations that make it easier for customers to engage with the resort. Everything Millbrook has to offer, from digital gift cards and experience packages to restaurant and hotel bookings, is only a few clicks away.
The content management system was also designed and built in an easy-to-use modular format, allowing the marketing team to add new content without the help of a developer.

Digital Performance

Designed for better ROI

Everything we built was with optimisation and performance-centricity in mind. SEO, analytics tools and tags were added to improve the organic ranking for us to see how users engage with the site and where drop-offs in conversion are. Through Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO), our team optimises their digital advertising by measuring its effectiveness across campaign touchpoints, fine-tuning each stage of the sales funnel and making tweaks that enhance landing page performance.

Conversion Optimised

Impact

$

69%

bookings revenue

By putting data first, we helped Millbrook better understand the value of digital and get an improved return on investment. Relaunching and amplifying their presence online through data-led changes saw a significant increase in business value. Between 2019 and 2020, we saw a 94% increase in website visitors and a 69% increase in bookings revenue for Millbrook. Additionally, coming out of COVID in early 2021, we saw an increase in domestic website traffic and spending, which was an excellent sign for local tourism. We also led them through their relaunch into Australia, which was a success resulting in increased website traffic and revenue.

The story continues

Our story with Millbrook Resort and Spa started with a simple website change and resulted in a digital platform that enables their team to quickly react to changes in the dynamic luxury accommodation and tourism market. Since the website relaunch, we've continued to work closely with the team on ongoing brand and performance campaigns. Our design and development team rolled out new features like digital in-room dining menus, increasing efficiency during challenging times of the tight labour market whilst making every stay an indulgent and luxurious experience for Millbrook's guests.

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Customer engagement Process digitisation Journey touchpoints UX/UI Design Advanced web development Conversion rate optimisation