Hello, travel enthusiasts! Ready to explore the world’s best tourism websites and plan your next adventure? Our guide to the top 50 tourism websites is here to help.
Our team of digital marketing professionals has scoured the web to find and evaluate the best tourism sites based on design, functionality, uniqueness, and user experience. From visually stunning designs to comprehensive information about travel destinations, these sites embody excellence in the world of tourism.
Not only will you find inspiration for your own travel website, but also gain valuable tips on how to create an online presence that inspires and excites your visitors.
Embark on a virtual journey around the world with the help of this guide, and create an online presence that reflects the beauty and uniqueness of your travel business! You’ll find website examples of travel agencies, accommodation providers, transportation companies, tour operators, and travel technology companies in this list! For examples within other industries, head back to our beautiful website designs article!
Top Tourist Destination Website Designs
1. Travel Oregon
2. Visit Montana
3. Pure Michigan
4. Travel South Dakota
5. Visit New Mexico
6. Travel Alabama
7. Go Hawaii
8. Travel Louisiana
9. Visit Indiana
Related: Tourist destinations often utilize digital marketing as a way of connecting with an engaged audience and nurturing those relationships.
10. Another Escape
11. Travel Wisconsin
12. Explore Minnesota
13. Visit Arizona
14. North Dakota Tourism
15. Travel Nevada
16. Travel Oklahoma
17. Visit Idaho
18. Visit Missouri
19. Vermont Vacation
20. Visit Finland
21. I Love New York
22. Visit Washington
23. Texas Vacation
24. Travel Iowa
Related: Rank your vacation hotspot in search results with the help of a local SEO agency with experience in the industry.
25. Visit Rhode Island
26. Visit North Carolina
27. Visit Utah
28. Enjoy Illinois
29. Visit Pennsylvania
30. Visit Brazil
31. Visit California
32. Visit Arkansas
33. Visit Florida
34. Tennessee Vacation
35. Colorado Tourism
36. Discover South Carolina
37. Visit Nebraska
Related: When SEO isn’t getting the results you need fast enough, look toward paid advertising for instant awareness for your vacation or tourist destination.
38. Kentucky Tourism
39. Visit New Jersey
40. On The Grid
41. Discover Los Angeles
42. Visit Mississippi
43. Visit Wyoming
44. Visit Maine
45. Travel Alaska
46. Explore Georgia
47. Travel Kansas
48. Visit Virginia
49. Visit Maryland
50. Visit West Virginia
How to Build an Outstanding Tourism Website
Are you in the process of building a new website for your tourism company? How exciting!
Let’s walk through some of the most important steps in building a new, or redesigning an existing, tourism website.
Feel free to skip the first few sections if you already have a domain name, hosting service, and website platform picked out!
1.) Choosing a Domain Name
Selecting the right domain name for your tourism website is a critical step in establishing your online identity. It serves as the address that visitors will use to access your website and plays a significant role in branding and recognition.
Here’s a step-by-step process to help you choose the perfect domain name:
- Brainstorm: Start by generating ideas for your domain name, considering the name of your business, the tourist destinations you specialize in, and unique selling points.
- Simplicity: Strive for a simple and easy-to-spell domain name. Avoid complex words, hyphens, or numbers.
- Consistency: If your business has an established brand name, consider incorporating it into your domain name. For example, if your business name is Happy Travel Experts, avoid registering a domain like 123VacationPlanning.biz.
- Availability: Check the availability of your desired domain names early on. Many common domain names are already taken. If that’s the case, explore options for purchasing an available domain name. However, be mindful of the costs involved.
- Domain Extensions: Choose a domain name extension that aligns with your website’s purpose. While .com is widely recognized, consider other options like .net, .org, or industry-specific extensions like .travel.
- Legal Considerations: Before registering a domain name, conduct a trademark search to ensure it doesn’t infringe upon someone else’s intellectual property. Avoid using the name of well-known tourist attractions or other companies without permission.
- Register the Domain: Once you’ve identified an available domain name, register it through a reputable domain registrar. Based on our experience as a digital agency, we recommend using GoDaddy, or Namecheap for easy domain name registration.
2.) Selecting a Website Platform
After figuring out your domain name, the next step is selecting a website platform for your next tourist website.
Most tourist attractions are going to develop content-based websites with photo galleries, contact forms, live chats, and event calendars to drive conversions.
You’ll typically only see tourist websites adding ecommerce if they are selling souvenirs or tickets on their website.
For Content Websites:
Many tourism companies find WordPress to be an excellent platform. However, there are also options like Wix, and other hosted website builders that can meet your needs.
- WordPress: WordPress is a versatile and widely used content management system (CMS) that offers great flexibility and customization options. It caters to all types of tourism websites, from simple sites to more complex ones that offer online booking and reservation systems. With a vast collection of tourism-inspired themes and helpful plugins available, WordPress allows you to create a highly customized website tailored to your tourism hotspot or tourism company. It’s an ideal choice if you value control and want the ability to expand your website’s functionality over time. While there is a hosted version of WordPress, most users prefer the open-source version installed on a web hosting account.
- Wix: The Wix platform offers comparable page-building features. It is also a hosted solution. We have experience working on tourism websites built with Wix and found it to be a reliable page builder, making it another confident recommendation. With Wix, you won’t need a separate web hosting service.
For Ecommerce Websites:
If your tourism company sells products online, you’ll likely find either WooCommerce or Shopify suitable.
- WooCommerce: If you plan to build an online store for your tourism business using WordPress, WooCommerce is the ideal ecommerce plugin to install. It seamlessly integrates with WordPress, allowing you to add ecommerce functionality to your existing tourism website. WooCommerce offers a wide range of extensions, payment gateways, and inventory management tools, making it an excellent choice for tourism businesses looking to sell online.
- Shopify: The Shopify platform is a leading ecommerce solution that provides everything you need to create and manage an online tourism business. It is a hosted ecommerce platform, meaning you don’t need to find a separate web hosting service to use it. Like other ecommerce solutions, Shopify offers a user-friendly interface, customizable themes, built-in security, and a range of features for inventory management, payments, and shipping.
Web Hosting Requirements
If you choose a platform like WordPress or WooCommerce, you’ll need to find a web hosting service.
As a suggestion, we often recommend our own web hosting service for WordPress websites. For recommendations from other hosting companies, consider the following reliable options:
- WP Engine: This is one of our favorite web hosting services for tourism companies. WP Engine offers a great control panel that simplifies the creation of staging websites. Their backup process is also seamless. The only downside we’ve seen is the limits they place on PHP max_execution_time. Keep in mind that their pricing can increase quickly if you require upgraded services.
- SiteGround: We’ve always enjoyed working with SiteGround. Their live chat and email support is excellent compared to more well-known hosting firms. We’ve never had to wait long to get in touch with someone, and typically the first person we interacted with solved the issue. Their backup tools are also very user-friendly. They offer reasonable pricing for tourism companies.
- Digital Ocean: This is a great option for cloud hosting but may be too advanced for most tourism company websites. We’ve never had issues with the Digital Ocean cloud network, unlike other cloud networks we’ve tried. However, cloud hosting can be expensive when considering droplet (server instance) costs, operating system, control panel, server software, offsite backup, and server management fees. For server administration, you can check out AdminGeekZ for recommendations.
3.) Choosing a Website Template
Most tourism companies prefer to purchase and customize a third-party website template as it significantly reduces web development costs and turnaround time. However, if your company prefers a custom design, you can always hire a custom web developer or custom ecommerce developer to create a theme tailored specifically to your needs.
For setting up a tourism website, let’s focus on suggestions for finding a pre-built website template! Here are some links to the main theme marketplaces to consider:
WordPress Tourism Themes
You can find free themes at wordpress.org, or explore tourism-inspired templates on ThemeForest.
Roam – Themeforest
$89
Getaway – Themeforest
$85
Kamperen – Themeforest
$85
UniTravel – Themeforest
$69
Wix Tourism Themes
You can find free and paid themes in their marketplace at wix.com, some of which are suitable for tourism companies.
4.) Crafting Content & Adding Visuals
Now that you have your domain name, website platform, and theme selected, it’s time to start building captivating content for your tourism website!
Here are some valuable tips to create engaging and effective website copy tailored to your target audience:
- Know your target audience: Before writing a single word, gain a clear understanding of your target audience’s demographics, preferences, and needs. Shape your content to address their pain points, provide value, and resonate with them. This will improve your search engine rankings for tourism-related searches relevant to your business.
- Define your key messages: Determine the main messages you want to convey through your website content. Align these messages with your brand, emphasize your unique advantages, and clearly communicate the benefits of your tourism services or attractions.
- Keep it concise and scannable: Online readers tend to scan content, so ensure your writing is concise and easy to digest. Use short paragraphs, bullet points, subheadings, and bold text to break up the content and enhance readability.
- Create clear and compelling headlines: Craft attention-grabbing headlines that instantly communicate the value and relevance of your tourism business. A well-crafted headline can entice visitors to explore your website further and learn more about what you offer.
- Strategically incorporate keywords: Conduct research on relevant keywords and naturally incorporate them throughout your content. This can boost your tourism website’s visibility in search engine results. However, avoid keyword stuffing, as it can negatively impact readability and user experience. Tools like Ahrefs or Semrush can assist with keyword research.
- Maintain a conversational tone: Write in a conversational style that resonates with your tourism audience. Avoid jargon or overly technical language unless your target audience specifically requires it. Engage your readers by addressing them directly and adopting a friendly, approachable tone.
- Edit and proofread: Always edit and proofread your content before publishing. Check for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. Ensure the flow of your content is smooth and logical, aligning with your brand voice and style guidelines. Tools like Grammarly can be helpful in this regard!
- Leverage ChatGPT for assistance: If you encounter challenges generating ideas or need help refining the content on your tourism website, consider leveraging AI tools like ChatGPT.
Break up lengthy text sections by incorporating relevant and high-quality images into your content. Consider the following tips:
- Choose high-quality images: Opt for visually appealing and well-composed high-resolution images. Blurry or pixelated images can diminish the overall quality of your tourism website.
- Ensure relevance: Select images that are directly relevant to your content and effectively illustrate your message. Images should complement the text and provide additional context or visual interest to enhance the visitor’s experience.
- Explore stock photo resources: Utilize reputable stock photo websites such as Unsplash, Pixabay, or Shutterstock to discover a wide range of professional-quality images related to tourism that align with your website’s theme. Be mindful of licensing requirements and attribute images when necessary.
- Customize images when possible: If you have the skills or resources, consider customizing or branding images to maintain consistency with your tourism brand. This can create a unified visual experience for your visitors. Tools like Adobe Photoshop or Canva can be useful for this purpose.
- Optimize image file sizes: Compress images to optimize their file sizes without compromising quality. Large image files can slow down your tourism website’s page speed, negatively impacting user experience and SEO. Tools like TinyPNG can assist with this task.
5.) Post Launch Strategies
Once you have built and launched your tourism website, there are several essential tasks and services to consider for maximizing its effectiveness. Here are some fundamental suggestions to help you navigate post-launch activities:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Boost your tourism company’s visibility in local search results by implementing SEO strategies. Conduct keyword research, optimize your content, and ensure a solid internal linking structure. Regularly update your website with fresh, high-quality content to attract organic traffic. Consider hiring our SEO team or explore third-party providers like The HOTH for assistance.
- Paid Advertising: Drive targeted traffic to your tourism business by utilizing paid advertising platforms such as Google Ads or Facebook Ads. Consider hiring our PPC management services or sourcing talented professionals from websites like Mayple for quicker results.
- Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO): Analyze your tourism website’s performance and user behavior using tools like Google Analytics. Identify areas where users may drop off or face barriers to conversion. Conduct A/B testing with tools like VWO to make data-driven changes that improve conversion rates and enhance the overall user experience of your tourism website.
- Website Security: Protect your tourism website from malware and other threats. Implement robust security measures such as SSL certificates, web application firewalls (e.g., Sucuri), and regular backups. Keep your CMS, plugins, and themes up to date to minimize vulnerabilities. Monitor your website for potential security risks and promptly address any issues. Consider utilizing a website uptime monitoring service like UptimeRobot.
- Website Maintenance: Ensure optimal performance of your tourism website by regularly maintaining it. If you’re using WordPress, this includes updating plugins and themes, monitoring website speed and performance, and resolving broken links or errors. Consider hiring our website maintenance services or finding freelancers on platforms like Upwork. Don’t forget to regularly back up your tourism website to protect against data loss or technical issues.
- User Feedback and Testing: Actively seek user feedback to understand visitor experiences and identify areas for improvement. Implement user testing to gain insights into how users interact with your tourism website. Use this feedback to make iterative enhancements and continuously optimize the user experience.
- Content Updates: Keep your website content fresh and up to date. Regularly publish new blog posts about tourist hotspots, update product or service information, and ensure all information is accurate and relevant. Engaging and valuable content not only attracts visitors but also encourages them to return and share your content with others interested in tourism.
Remember, post-launch digital marketing activities are crucial for the long-term success of your tourism website. Stay proactive, monitor performance, and adapt your strategies to achieve your business goals and meet the needs of your audience.