Introduction
This article showcases the luxury hotel photography services I provided for the Cumbrian hotel: Heather Glen Country House.
The Heather Glen Country House is a luxury hotel located near Ainstable in Cumbria and is half way between Carlisle and Penrith. This makes it an ideal choice for travellers passing North to South / South to North on the M6 as well as for those looking for somewhere in Cumbria away from the tourist hotspots in the Lake District.
In recent years the Heather Glen has served a wide array of customers with a majority its revenue coming from local families eating in their restaurant. But despite currently having 7 rooms for guests to stay in they have availability for some of these throughout the year. In addition to their restaurant and rooms the Heather Glen has a superb offer for weddings and corporate clients looking to hold events in a rural setting too.
For a luxury Cumbrian hotel looking to improve upon their overall appeal and raise their marketing the Heather Glen Country House decided they wanted to modernise their website. And with the help of Kendal marketing agency We Are Digital, we have worked together to provide a new online presence which captures the attention of their prospective new audience without alienating their current loyal customer base.
The big objectives for the new website were identified as (whilst specifically focussing on the visual elements):
- Build on the brand of the hotel and position it as a place which offered luxury food and accommodation.
- Visually emphasise the key features which separate it from its competitors in the local area and as a destination for visitors from further away
- Draw interest to the hotel as a venue to stay and dine and most importantly want to return to again and again
- Become seen as a high quality venue for corporate events which provides accommodation and catering
- Promote their excellent menu and continue to build on its reputation as the place to go for all kinds of occasions.
The consequence of meant Heather Glen opted for comprehensive photography and videography package to compliment the new website being built by We Are Digital in Kendal.
This has resulted in a photography package which includes images of:
- Their food
- interior photography. of their guest rooms
- two large function rooms, bars, cosy corners,
- outdoor spaces
- restaurant photographs and
- portraits of the Heather Glen team
as well as a brand video to tell the hotel's story and convey a similar set of objectives in a different format. However, due to sustained poor weather over the summer 2024 period, it was decided to push the filming of Heather Glen's brand video to Spring/Summer 2025.
The challenge for such a complex project is ensuring a consistent identity and message across all photos and brand video so they look like they're meant to be together.
Understanding the Client
Luxury hotel marketing can't be easy. But whatever you're marketing you should always start by understanding the internal and external factors affecting the business. What's happening politically which can affect customer's decisions for needing a hotel, what about economic, social, technological, legal and environmental factors too. What about the hotel's competitors? What makes those hotels different - or not, to the Heather Glen? What can be learned from how they're doing business? Where are customers currently coming from, what are the services and how much does it cost. And when you've done all that, you'll need to do an audit on what the Heather Glen is currently doing to market itself.
While most of these questions are not covered in any depth, the conversations I had with Judith helped to build an understanding of the business so I could help guide her towards understanding her brand in more detail so I could then use it as the basis of the photographs and video I'd capture. After all, there's no point in me creating a set of photographs which highlight a style of food photo which looks like it has been taken from a local competitor's website. Equally, I wouldn't want to produce a brand video which features the landscapes shown on the nearest pub's social media profiles.
Developing the Creative Concept
Each element I was due to create - the photos and brand video, needed to be conceptualised before pressing any buttons. What did we want to include and what should be excluded etc.
Heather Glen have been fortunate to receive some funding to help develop their property. This was still ongoing when I went to plan our sessions and so being aware of this helped give me boundaries of where to shoot and where I couldn't. Equally, finding out they were a dog friendly hotel located among a sea of public footpaths over rolling hills and countryside meant getting shots of dogs enjoying their stay with their owners was a key factor - because dogs deserve a bit of luxury too sometimes.
Judith was keen I told a visual story of what it might be like to stay at the Heather Glen and I was more than happy to ensure this was a high ranking priority within the photography package she selected.
The Photography Package
The images I took were largely dictated by the content architecture of Judith's new website that was being built in parallel by We Are Digital.
Images were needed to align with the text and user journey being created to move website visitors towards making bookings and enquiries and so our shot list came from that. The final package resulted in a need for property interior and exterior shots of her bedrooms, public rooms and dining facilities, food shots and shots of Judith, her husband Denis and their team who help create their customer's experiences. This is quite a typical shot 'shopping list' for hospitality businesses because there is always more than one factor involved when influencing a prospective visitor's decisions over where to stay. Doing each set of photos well is paramount to showcase a luxury hotel like the Heather Glen.
Not only could these images be used on their new website, but careful consideration of what was shot in what aspect meant the images could also be repurposed on their social media channels, in their online advertising, in email campaigns and in print too, should they be required. This means they'll receive one set of images with lots of flexibility use and keep using them on different platforms giving great cost efficiency.
Production Process
Because of the quantity and diversity of shots required, along with aligning availability of the hotel, their chef, owners and staff models, six sessions were needed within the photography production stage. A majority of that time was allocated to creating their food images (16 hours). Creating each individual food image took a minimum of 90 minutes, often longer so the lighting, food styling and scene creation was perfect. But the results really do speak for themselves. Once a set of images were created they were edited and uploaded to a client photo gallery so the images could be checked and passed to the website design team at We Are Digital.
Attention to detail was incredibly important throughout the photo production stage to ensure a luxury feel and quality would be witnessed by all who would view the images on the new Heather Glen website.
Measuring Success
As the website is still in its infancy, there's no metrics available to demonstrate the level of success this combined photo and digital campaign has had. However, when it is, attention will be paid to the following metrics to track the businesses performance and provide further insight into amendments which might be required.
- Website page engagement time - tracking the level of interest a visitor might have on the content shown on each page.
- Click Through Rates on images with links attached to them - i.e. buttons with images. If users are clicking on images to view them in more detail or navigate to booking pages, it indicates that the photos are capturing attention and interest. A high CTR on photos suggests the images are effectively encouraging users to explore more, driving engagement and potential conversions.
- Conversion rates on pages with high-impactful images - e.g. if users proceed to book a room or make a restaurant reservation after viewing a specific image-heavy page, it indicates that the photographs are doing their job of enticing potential customers.
- Greater scroll depth on pages with lots of images - for pages with high-quality photos, a high scroll depth implies that visitors are engaged with the visual content and are exploring the page more thoroughly. This is particularly useful for hotels where the visual experience is a selling point. A greater scroll depth on these pages can show the client that professional images are encouraging users to stay engaged, discover more offerings, and potentially convert to bookings.
