Do you have a big conference coming up?
Conferences are a big part of the hospitality industry.
Hosting a conference can bring in thousands of people from all over the world to visit a city. Those people can gain knowledge from speakers, network with one another and visit all the local attractions, restaurants and more!
An important part of setting up a conference is creating a great website.
If you’re in the market to create a website we’ve put together a little checklist of items that can make a good impression on your attendees.
1. Responsive Design
If you’ve attended a conference lately you’ve probably noticed that people use their smartphones for everything. They check email, messages and browse the Internet for information.
Part of that information is your conference website. Attendees will visit on their desktops, but they’ll also use their phones especially for information like the conference schedule.
Making your website responsive ensures that attendees get a good website experience no matter the device they use.
2. Social Media Feed Integration
Another idea is to integrate social media feeds onto your website.
This includes feeds from Twitter for conference hashtags and to your official Twitter account.
You can also incorporate galleries from Instagram and Facebook so attendees can take photos and share them on the official conference site by using official conference hashtags.
3. Presentation Content
Attendees often take notes during presentations. One way to make their note taking easier is to add all the presentation content to your website.
You could make it available by login for paid attendees. Ask the speakers ahead of time for their content so you can have it all ready to upload to the site ahead of time or right after each speaker has finished their presentation.
Once the conference is over you could sell the content to those that weren’t able to attend or you could use it as marketing material to attract people to future conferences.
4. Local Attractions & Restaurants Information
Attendees will always want to know where the good restaurants and attractions are for after hours. Add this to the site and include the links to the websites so your attendees can easily find the information they need all from their smartphones.
5. Photo Gallery
It can be fun to add photos to a gallery during the conference. You can add them to the site where attendees can see what’s been happening. It’s also a place they can come back to and reminisce later once the conference is over.
6. Blog
A blog is a great way for your team to add updates about the conference to the website. You can provide recaps for presentations and add information about things that might change during the conference.
7. Signup For Future Events
Finally, always make sure to have an area with information about future conferences.
Repeat attendees are a big portion of future revenue so include all the info people need so they can put future conferences on their calendars.
Conclusion
Hopefully these ideas have sparked some inspiration for your conference website.
A website is a great tool that people use before, during and even after the conference. Use it to your full advantage to give attendees a better experience, which can lead to more revenue for you and your city.
Image: Rainer Stropek
