Website revamp and brand elevation for Village Hotel and Residences, bringing “Live Like a Local” to life online.
Client Overview
Village Hotel is a hospitality brand under the Far East Hospitality group, offering stays in Singapore’s most culturally rich neighbourhoods.
From the colourful streets of Katong, to the urban charm of Bugis and the island escape of Sentosa, Village Hotel & Residences is rooted in its “Live like a Local” ethos.
The brand invites guests to immerse themselves in local culture and community, and promises travelers an experience rich in local character, culture, and warmth.
Project Overview
Village Hotel, a beloved hospitality brand under Far East Hospitality, sought a digital refresh to better appeal to modern travelers while retaining its uniquely Singapore charm and vibrant local spirit.
The goal was to revamp the website to reflect a refreshed brand identity, tell a stronger story showcasing the hotel’s uniquely local neighbourhood experiences, and ultimately drive more direct bookings.
Challenge
The previous website lacked distinctiveness, storytelling and emotional appeal, offering a generic hotel booking experience that didn’t reflect the richness of Village Hotel’s brand and unique neighbourhood charms.
Outdated visuals and scattered messaging made it difficult to build trust or excitement, especially among digitally savvy guests.
We needed to bridge the gap between brand vision and user expectations, and translate that into a high-performing, brand-led digital experience.
The challenge was to unify the brand narratives across multiple properties while creating a scalable design system that could evolve with future campaigns and be adopted across other hotel brands under the group.
We worked within a tight timeline and managed stakeholder alignment across digital marketing, business development, product and operations.
Scope
- Conducted stakeholder strategy alignment workshop
- Hotel site visits and neighbourhood immersion
- End-to-end UX and UI design
- Creation of a modular design system to be reused across other brands (Barracks Hotel, Outpost Hotel)
- Led and managed a team of 3 UI designers
- Brand storytelling and narrative development
- Art direction for photography
- Creative direction and supervision of on-location photoshoots
- Developer handoff and QA support through to launch
My Role
I led the website revamp, overseeing a team of three designers and collaborating across disciplines to elevate the Village brand presence; from visual storytelling and narrative development to crafting an intuitive high-conversion user experience.
- Business Strategy Alignment
I facilitated a strategic workshop with key business stakeholders to align on Village’s brand vision, audience insights, and success metrics while ensuring creative direction was grounded in business objectives.
- Hotel Site Visits
With my design team, I conducted site visits across multiple Village Hotel properties to gather firsthand insights, observe guest interactions, and capture the sensory nuances of each location. These visits informed both the storytelling and visual direction.
- End-to-end UX and UI design
I led the full design lifecycle, from user research, persona creation to journey maps; wireframing to high-fidelity prototype and finally, responsive design implementation.
- Brand Storytelling and Narrative Development
I worked with business stakeholders, brand strategists and copywriter to craft a narrative that weaves cultural touchpoints, guest experiences, and the brand’s ethos of “Live like a Local”.
- Art Direction
I led the concept development and on-site direction for lifestyle photoshoots, capturing authentic moments that reflect each property’s local character. - Creative Leadership
Directed a team of three designers, guiding visual strategy, design execution, and cross-functional collaboration to deliver all design assets for development and launch the website on time. - UX UI consultation with web development team
Performed design UAT and QA during development and launch.
Design Approach
The project began with a strategy alignment workshop involving key business stakeholders in digital marketing, business development and operations.
This helped to align brand objectives, audience needs, and success metrics, forming a solid foundation for a unified creative direction and content strategy.
To immerse myself in the brand and better inform the creative process, I conducted site visits to each hotel property, walking the neighbourhoods, observing guest behaviour, and noting the unique charm of each location.
These insights directly influenced the tone of voice, photography direction, and storytelling structure across the website.
From there, the creative vision centred on deepening the “Live Like a Local” promise.
Photography was art-directed to feel lived-in and locally grounded. We captured not just the property highlights and surrounding cultural touchpoints, but the feeling of each locale.
Every visual and line of copy was curated to be personable and intentionally crafted to highlight each hotel’s connection to its location.
A key part of my role was owning the end-to-end UX and UI design, from mapping out user journeys, creating early wireframes to delivering polished interface design, while overseeing a team of 3 UI designers.
I developed a modular design system that not only served the Village Hotel website, but was also built for adoption across other brands within Far East Hospitality, including The Barracks Hotel and The Outpost Hotel.
This future-focused approach allowed for consistent design language, faster rollout, saving time and business expense while aligning brand identity across properties.
The interface was designed to feel clean, modern, and mobile-optimised, while integrating key conversion touchpoints such as booking flows, direct booking offers and membership rewards.
Throughout development, I worked closely with engineers to maintain design fidelity, conducted QA checks, and ensured the final output aligned with both creative and business expectations.
Ultimately, we created a seamless experience that felt welcoming, intuitive, and true to the brand while working within a tight timeline and aligning multiple stakeholder’s expectations.
Final Deliverables
- Heuristic evaluation report of previous website
- Strategic alignment outputs for new website
- End-to-end UX wireframes and UI design system
- Art direction guidelines and shoot planning
- On-site creative direction for photoshoots
- Full web copy and content structure
- Final design assets, developer handoff and QA
Outcome
The new Village Hotel website resulted in a significant increase in direct bookings and improved time-on-site and engagement.
Post-launch data revealed a significant uplift in direct bookings, validating the power of emotionally resonant design and well-placed direct booking offers.
Guests reported stronger brand connection with deeper engagement on neighbourhood and brand storytelling content. Users spent more time exploring key pages and converted more efficiently through the new UX flows.
The modular design system has been successfully adopted by other brands under Far East Hospitality, namely The Barracks Hotel and The Outpost Hotel, streamlining design processes and maintaining brand consistency. This demonstrates the success of a future-ready, cross-brand design approach.
The refreshed website now communicates a stronger, clearer brand identity, bringing the spirit of “Live Like a Local” to life across every screen. The work not only revitalised the digital experience for Village Hotel as modern, locally inspired hospitality experience, but also set a new standard for how the group approaches digital branding.
Guests reported stronger brand connection with deeper engagement on neighbourhood and brand storytelling content.
Design and UX strategies to increase direct bookings
Each hotel is presented with a clear, scannable description that highlights its unique style and setting, making it easy for different types of travellers (whether business, family, or solo) to find the stay that best suits their needs.
Distinctive brand narratives further guide guests to the experience that aligns with their travel purpose.
The Village Experience ‘Eat, Play, Explore’ inspires guests with curated ideas for dining, activities, and attractions around each hotel’s precinct. Every property features its own Village Passport, a downloadable local guide tailored to its unique neighbourhood.
This thoughtful touch helps guests feel instantly connected to their surroundings, making Village Hotel an easy and compelling choice for travellers seeking authentic local experiences.
Every visual and line of copy was curated to be personable and intentionally crafted to highlight each hotel’s connection to its location.
Users spent more time exploring key pages and converted more efficiently through the new UX flows.
The “book now” button is persistently on the header of every page, with social proof displayed prominently above the fold.
I made use of the power of social proof to boost user trust and increase booking conversion rates directly on the hotel website.
- Positive customer reviews
- Awards and recognitions
High quality guest rooms and amenities images are also featured on the website. These play a critcal role in users’ decisions, allowing them to create a mental picture of their stay and experience.
When presented with multiple room options, clear and concise key information and room differentiators help users make their decision.
By introducing user-centric visuals and content, simplified navigation, social proof and mobile-first enhancements, the revamped site achieved a 42% increase in direct hotel bookings, and improved average session duration by 25% within 3 months of launch.
Accessible FAQs were also included to answer any doubts that potential guests may have. FAQs improves visitors’ experience and demonstrates that Far East Hospitality a customer-centric business.
Further membership incentives are introduced at the bottom of the page to give the final push to sign up for membership and do a direct booking to enjoy the discount.
The refreshed website now communicates a stronger, clearer brand identity, bringing the spirit of “Live Like a Local” to life across every screen.
The work not only revitalised the digital experience for Village Hotel as modern, locally inspired hospitality experience, but also set a new standard for how the group approaches digital branding.
Design system for Far East Hospitality Group of hotels
My design team developed a Modular Design System from the ground up, enabling consistency, scalability, and reusability across the Village, Outpost, and Barracks hotel websites.
Its successful implementation has since been adopted as a shared foundation across other Far East Hospitality brands.
The modular design system has been successfully adopted by other brands under Far East Hospitality, namely The Barracks Hotel and The Outpost Hotel, streamlining design processes and maintaining brand consistency.
This demonstrates the success of a future-ready, cross-brand design approach.
Business Impact
Following the launch of the websites for Village Hotel & Residences, The Outpost Sentosa, and The Barracks Sentosa, Far East Hospitality saw steady growth in hotel occupancy throughout 2019, contributing to a significant uplift in overall profitability.
“Performance of our Singapore hospitality business in 2019 was commendable. We opened two new hotels – Village Hotel Sentosa and The Outpost Hotel Sentosa, which have recorded steady increases in occupancies for the rest of the year.
Our third hotel at Sentosa – The Barracks Hotel Sentosa – was opened in December 2019. These hotels under management at Sentosa have contributed to the increase in operating profit from the Singapore management business.”
– FEH press release
What I Learned
- Early stakeholder alignment is invaluable. Starting with a clear strategic foundation ensured everyone was moving in the same direction, reducing friction later on.
- Design systems are not just a tool, they’re a mindset. Building for scale early on helped create consistency across brands and saved future design effort.
- Immersion unlocks empathy. Visiting the properties in person gave me insights no deck or brief could offer, it shaped everything from layout to tone of voice.
- Leading a team means creating space. Overseeing three UI designers taught me the importance of clarity, feedback loops, and trusting others to bring their strengths to the table.
- Details matter at every step. From art direction to micro-interactions, the little moments helped shape a big impression.
View the websites at:
www.villagehotels.asia
www.thebarrackshotel.com.sg
www.theoutposthotel.com.sg
A Gentle Lion 
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