Mad Monkey Hostel Website Redesign

Website redesign for a Mad Monkey hostel, aimed at two things at once: converting more direct bookings, and showing the personality guests only met after they had already arrived. The old site was a placeholder that handed bookings to third-party platforms instead of selling the rooms itself. The new site replaced that channel and became the hostel's primary revenue source.

- No clear call-to-action on the landing page, so visitors had nowhere obvious to go.

- Booking flow required too many steps with unclear progress.

- Mobile experience was not built for travellers booking on the move.

- Brand personality never reached the screen, so the site read like a generic hostel.

Competitive analysis of five hostel brands surfaced the same three priorities across all of them: social vibe, location clarity, and a booking flow that stays fast on a phone. That told me the problem was not aesthetics, so I ran a design sprint with stakeholders, explored three visual directions, and pushed for the photography-led one, the hostel's atmosphere was its actual differentiator and none of it was on the site. Then I rebuilt the booking flow with visible progress and fewer steps, and moved it fully on-site instead of handing the transaction to a third party.

- Booking conversion up 32%.

- Average session duration up 45%.

- Mobile bounce rate down 28%.

- Bookings moved off third-party platforms. The site is now the primary revenue channel.