Budgetplaces.com: Direct Hotel Booking Platform
It was 2013 and the beginnings of responsive web design. inspirations from ‘Airbnb’ , ‘Virgin’ & ‘Skyscanner’ impacted in the way we designed our websites using full screen hero images and search engines becoming the focal point of a homepage.
I reported to the UX Manager and also worked closely following up his wireframes. It was here that I was exposed to the strategy of UX design.
Moving to Barcelona, I joined ‘BudgetPlaces’ as their new Lead Visual Designer. I lead a small team of young designers to re-develop the creative strategy. The goal was to introduce personality to their marketing communications. A stylised set of images was created based on a metro map illustrating the sense of easy travel. These outlined images were both simple enough but impactful enough to support our messages.
Role: Lead Visual Designer
Focus: E-commerce performance, brand refresh, conversion optimization
Challenge:
Budgetplaces, was a leading low-cost hotel booking site, was facing challenges in converting mobile users and modernizing its visual identity to stay competitive in a fast-moving travel tech market.
Role:
As Lead Visual Designer, I owned the end-to-end creative process across product and marketing. This included:
Redesigning homepage, landing pages, and hotel listings with clearer hierarchy and mobile responsiveness
Collaborating with UX researchers and developers to test A/B variants of booking flows
Creating high-conversion campaign assets for seasonal promotions across web, email, and affiliate channels
Elevating the visual branding to appeal to a more global, design-conscious audience
Results:
Improved conversion rates on mobile of up to 47% booking flows through simplified layouts and clearer calls to action
Reduced drop-off at checkout by improving visual trust signals and navigation clarity
Delivered creative for over 40 campaigns across multiple European markets
Reinforced brand recognition with a unified visual language across product and performance campaigns
Impact
The redesign work helped Budgetplaces modernize its look and feel while achieving tangible growth in user engagement and bookings — especially across mobile, where performance gains were most needed.
