How Did Castle Hotel and Spa Increase Gift Card Sales by 45% and Repeat Business by 25% Through Website Transformation?

"If you are looking for a company that will make sure you show your best value, share a great story and assure your guests they'll have a memorable experience, you have to work with Liqui-Site. I wouldn't choose anyone else." — Kimberly Yancey, House Manager, Castle Hotel and Spa

The award-winning Castle Hotel and Spa sits on ten wooded acres, combining refinement and luxury with old-world elegance. Its on-site Equus restaurant holds Four Diamonds from AAA, recognition in the Michelin Guide, a Forbes Travel Guide Four-Star Award, and an "Excellent" rating from the New York Times. Castle also houses the luxurious Sankara Spa. "We strive to create lasting memories through the generations, and to treat our guests as royalty," explained Kimberly Yancey, House Manager. As a hospitality branding and web development partner for properties across the Westchester and NYC metropolitan area, Liqui-Site — an eMazzanti Technologies company — helps hotels, restaurants, and hospitality brands translate their unique story into digital experiences that drive measurable revenue results.

What Were Castle Hotel and Spa's Goals for Its Website Transformation?

Over the course of a year, Castle worked with Liqui-Site to make several improvements to its website. "Our goals were to make the website more appealing and efficient for guests and to generate additional revenue," reported Yancey.

Castle had worked with Liqui-Site prior to its acquisition by eMazzanti. When Yancey joined the Castle management team, the eMazzanti/Liqui-Site leadership made an immediate impression. "Once I met Carl and Susan, I knew I could collaborate with them," she reported.

The importance of hospitality-specific expertise proved central from the start. "Developer teams may not have full knowledge of what it takes to brand a property. When you have branding, design, and hospitality experience, like the team at Liqui-Site, it makes it a lot easier to have those conversations."

Susan Chait, Brand Champion at Liqui-Site, took responsibility for the success of each project. Working closely with Yancey on design, she managed the Liqui-Site team and project collaboration to ensure everything was completed on schedule. "Working with Susan is like girl power," related Yancey. "It sometimes provides me a sense of family because I know she wants what's best for our company. And I know that, at the end of the day, whatever ideas I have to share with her, she understands the brand and the big picture."

How Did Reinventing the Gift Card Program Drive a 45% Sales Increase?

One of the most impactful projects involved completely reimagining how Castle presented and sold gift cards.

The hotel had been using a system that didn't capture guest information — guests simply purchased a gift card for a dollar amount. Yancey and Chait transformed this into a Castle Experience program by connecting each gift card to a specific experience: a spa treatment, a tasting menu, or a chef's table experience.

"People loved the idea of gifting the experience and it drove revenue," reported Yancey. "Guests were more willing to pay to gift the Chef Table Experience as opposed to a $100 card. It makes a big difference when you can give someone an experience. It's been very successful!"

The Operational Transformation Behind the Results:

Chait helped Yancey create the layout and worked with the Liqui-Site web development team to ensure that the detailed handling fees and tax tables were configured correctly. The attention to back-end detail proved as important as the front-end experience design.

"Prior to this, we had no guest information. So basically, we started from scratch," explained Yancey. Now when someone purchases a gift card, staff sees the purchaser, the recipient, and their address — enabling proactive customer service for issues like a lost card.

The result: gift card sales increased by 45%, combining both online and offline improvements from the enhanced purchase and redemption process.

What Other Website Projects Contributed to Castle's Repeat Business Growth?

The gift card transformation was one part of a broader, page-by-page website rework that Liqui-Site conducted throughout the year.

Rotating Menus and Michelin Recognition:

Following Castle's recognition in the Michelin Guide, Liqui-Site worked with Yancey to update menus regularly, ensuring the website reflected the current dining experience that had earned the prestigious recognition. Menu freshness became a signal of the property's active, evolving culinary program.

Discovery Page and Event Promotion:

Liqui-Site suggested and built a Discovery page of destinations to explore during a visit, giving guests a fuller picture of the Tarrytown area experience beyond the property itself. When Yancey created a calendar of upcoming on-property events, Liqui-Site built pop-ups on Castle's home page to promote them.

"We even started selling tickets for on-property programming from the website — driven by the pop-ups," related Yancey. The addition of direct ticket sales converted the website from an informational tool into an active revenue channel.

Cross-Functional Project Coordination:

Throughout multiple simultaneous projects, Chait's coordination skills proved as valuable as her design expertise. "If there were multiple ideas and parties involved and not everybody was communicating, Susan definitely knew how to handle those situations by making sure that everyone came back together and shared all the information that they had collected," reported Yancey.

"Susan always checked back in and the timing of her response was perfect. It felt good to have someone else on the other end who understood where we were trying to go."

What Measurable Results Did Castle Hotel and Spa Achieve?

The cumulative impact of the year-long website transformation delivered results across multiple performance dimensions.

Gift card sales increased by 45% due to the enhanced gift card purchase and redemption process. Repeat business increased by 25% from the prior year. "We became very busy at times!" confirmed Yancey. "Even our international business is up."

The improved website and stronger unique branding also changed how guests perceive the property's value. "Working with Liqui-Site allowed us to show that our true value is in our history and making historic moments in each family or individual who comes to our property," explained Yancey.

Guest expectations and engagement rose alongside the numbers. "Seeing continued strong interest through the pandemic, I understand that our property is very important to people in Tarrytown, Westchester or even New York," reported Yancey. "This means that when we're past COVID-19, the flood gates will open up. Because if you still have that level of engagement with your guests, that means not only a job well done, but you're also thinking, where can I take this next? I would love to do more with Liqui-Site."

At an eMazzanti event held at Castle, Yancey met six of the Liqui-Site team members in person. "I can tell that it's a nurturing environment. When you have everybody working together and uplifting each other, you're only going to get the best from them. Carl is a great leader for his team. He is very knowledgeable and holds everyone to the same standard. Their ability to execute… you can tell it starts at the top."

For hospitality properties seeking to translate their brand story into digital revenue, organizations like Liqui-Site — backed by eMazzanti Technologies — bring the combination of hospitality industry expertise, design capability, and technical execution needed to deliver results that matter: more bookings, stronger guest engagement, and revenue programs that grow with the property.

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FAQ: Website Strategy and Digital Marketing for Hotels and Hospitality Businesses

Q: What website improvements have the biggest impact on hotel revenue?

A: The highest-impact website improvements for hotels typically fall into three categories. First, experience-based purchasing — replacing generic dollar-value gift cards or room bookings with curated experience packages increases average transaction value because guests perceive greater meaning in gifting an experience. Second, direct ticket and event sales convert informational pages into active revenue channels. Third, real-time menu and content updates signal to guests that the property is active and worth current attention, particularly important after recognition from guides like Michelin or AAA. Properties that treat their website as a revenue tool rather than a digital brochure consistently outperform those that don't.

Q: How does hospitality-specific web design differ from standard website development?

A: Hospitality web design requires understanding how guests make decisions, what emotional triggers drive bookings, and how to translate a property's physical atmosphere into a digital experience. Generic development teams optimize for technical performance; hospitality-focused teams optimize for the guest journey — from first impression to booking completion. This includes expertise in how to present amenities, position value against competitor properties, handle seasonal content updates, and design purchasing flows for hospitality-specific products like experience packages, spa services, and event tickets. Branding knowledge specific to the industry makes a significant practical difference in the quality of the resulting collaboration.

Q: How can hotels use pop-ups and promotional tools on their website without damaging the guest experience?

A: Effective hospitality pop-ups are time-sensitive, contextually relevant, and offer genuine value — upcoming events, limited-availability experiences, or seasonal packages the guest would actually want to know about. They work best when triggered by specific user behavior (time on page, exit intent) rather than appearing immediately on arrival. The key distinction is whether the pop-up serves the guest's interests or interrupts them. When pop-ups promote real property experiences and link directly to purchase, they become a natural extension of the booking experience rather than a distraction from it.

Q: What guest data should hotels capture through their website and how should it be used?

A: At minimum, hotels should capture purchaser name, contact information, and recipient details for gift transactions; booking source and preference data for accommodation reservations; and event registration information for on-property programming. This data serves multiple operational purposes: proactive customer service (resolving issues like lost cards), marketing segmentation (targeting past guests with relevant offers), and repeat business programs (recognizing loyal guests with personalized communication). Properties that begin capturing structured guest data systematically — even starting from scratch — build a compounding advantage over time as the dataset grows and enables more targeted engagement.

Q: How long does a comprehensive hotel website rework typically take?

A: A thorough hotel website transformation conducted page-by-page typically spans six to twelve months, depending on the property's size, the number of revenue programs being redesigned, and how many content elements require ongoing maintenance (menus, event calendars, seasonal packages). The phased approach allows properties to begin capturing results from completed sections while work continues on others, rather than waiting for a complete launch. Realistic timelines also accommodate the iterative collaboration required to capture a hospitality brand accurately — rushed timelines often produce technically functional websites that fail to convey the property's actual atmosphere and value.