Photos and Video for a Hotel Website: Shot List and Page Speed
Guests choose a hotel from its photos first. What to shoot, how to plan the shoot and how to publish images and video without slowing the site down.
Photos and video are the content on which guests actually decide to book a hotel. They look at the pictures before reading a word about the room, and often make up their minds there. Yet the same images, badly prepared, slow the page down until guests leave before the gallery appears. This article is for hotel owners and marketing teams. It covers what to shoot, how to plan the shoot and how to publish images and video without slowing the site. You can read our overall approach on our hotel website page.
Why hotel imagery is its own job
A hotel photo has two jobs: to attract and to inform accurately. A beautiful but misleading photo brings the booking and then returns as disappointment and a bad review. An extreme wide angle that makes a room look bigger, or a "sea view" shot from another angle, does exactly that. Good hotel photography shows the room at its real size, in real light, with its real view.
Volume is the second difference. A hotel site has dozens of images, a large resort hundreds. Loading them fast, organising them and updating them each season needs planning.
The shot list
| Area | Shots to take |
|---|---|
| Each room type | Overview from the door, bed, seating area, bathroom, balcony or terrace, the real view from the window, one or two details |
| Shared areas | Lobby, pools, beach or pier, garden, bar, spa, kids' club, meeting room |
| Food and drink | Restaurant, buffet layout, à la carte dishes, breakfast table, the bar at sunset |
| Exterior and location | The property as a whole, the entrance, the street or shoreline, an aerial view |
| Experience | Spaces in use, such as guests by the pool or activities (with written consent from anyone recognisable) |
| Season and time of day | Rooms in morning light, terraces at sunset, pools under evening lighting |
Keep the site's page structure next to you when writing the list, so you know which shots each room, restaurant and facility page needs.
Planning the shoot step by step
- List the pages and decide how many images each needs and which one is the cover.
- Pick the timing. In Antalya the season opens in April. The weeks before opening, when gardens are green and pools full but guests are few, are ideal.
- Prepare the rooms: fresh linen, no personal items, every lamp working.
- Plan the light: rooms with the best daylight in the morning, west-facing terraces late in the afternoon.
- Sort drone permits early. Drones must be registered with Turkey's civil aviation authority and some areas, especially near airports, need permission. Use a licensed operator.
- Shoot short video clips separately. Background video uses 5 to 10 second steady shots; a promotional film is a separate job.
- Agree on delivery: high resolution originals plus a named, organised archive.
Two different needs: Belek and Kaleiçi
At a large resort in Belek the selling points are scale and variety: pools, beach, golf nearby, restaurants. A drone shot shows size and position by the sea in one frame, and every restaurant and pool needs its own shots. At a boutique hotel in Kaleiçi you sell detail rather than scale: stone walls, wooden ceilings, the tree in the courtyard. Close-ups matter as much as wide shots. We cover boutique properties in our boutique hotel website guide.
Keeping the site fast
Size and format
Originals from the photographer should never go straight onto the site. Prepare several sizes for phone, tablet and desktop and let the browser pick. WebP or AVIF give much smaller files than JPEG at the same visible quality. Set width and height on every image so the layout does not jump while loading.
Lazy loading
The cover image at the top of the page should load straight away; gallery images further down should load as the guest scrolls. Lazy loading the cover image makes the page feel slow.
Video hosting
A short background clip can live on your own server if it is silent, compressed and only a few seconds long, with a still image shown instead on mobile. A longer film belongs on YouTube or Vimeo, embedded so that only a cover image shows until the guest clicks play. That way the heavy player files load only for guests who choose to watch.
Alt text and file names
Descriptive file names such as "deluxe-sea-view-room-balcony.webp" instead of "IMG_4521.jpg", and meaningful alt text on every image, help accessibility and search. We cover other search topics in our hotel website SEO guide.
Managing the archive and usage rights
Store images in folders named by room type, area and season, and know which ones are used on the site, the platforms and in print. Sending the same current set to the site, booking platforms and your Google Business Profile means guests see the same hotel everywhere. Agree usage rights in writing with the photographer: website, platforms, social media, advertising and print, with no time limit. Keep written consent from any staff or guests who appear in the photos alongside the archive.
Common mistakes
- Photos taken years ago, before the rooms were renovated.
- Extreme wide angles and heavy filters that misrepresent the room.
- Gallery images uploaded at full size, several megabytes each.
- Long background video with sound that autoplays on mobile too.
- Mixing up photos between room types.
- Using guests' faces without consent.
- Different, contradictory photos on the platforms and on the site.
If you would like to plan the visual side of your hotel site with us, get in touch.
Frequently asked questions
How many photos does a hotel site need?
There is no fixed number, but five or six shots per room type and two or three per shared area is a good start. A few strong photos beat many ordinary ones.
Are phone photos good enough?
For social media perhaps, but room pages deserve a professional shoot. Correct light, straight perspective and a prepared room let guests see the room as it really is.
Do we need drone footage?
If location or size is a selling point, such as a beachfront resort or a property with large gardens, drone footage is valuable. In Turkey drones must be registered with the civil aviation authority and some areas need permission, so work with a licensed operator.
Does a background video slow down the home page?
If poorly prepared, yes. A short, silent, compressed clip with a still image shown instead on mobile keeps it fast. Longer films belong on a video platform.
Which format should photos be uploaded in?
Modern formats such as WebP or AVIF give much smaller files than JPEG at the same quality. Prepare several sizes for different screens and let the browser choose.
How often should photos be updated?
Straight away after a room renovation, a new facility or a change of concept. Otherwise every few seasons, so the photos show the property as it is today.
