Riad website in Marrakech: turn high season into direct bookings

A lot of riads in Marrakech are run by owners who don't live there all year. You might be in Paris, Brussels or London, with a house manager on site, checking bookings on your phone between meetings. The rooms fill up for Christmas and Easter, which is great. Then the monthly statement arrives, and a large share of those nights came through Booking.com or Airbnb, each one with a commission taken off the top.

That's the most common situation when a riad owner comes to us for web design in Marrakech. Filling rooms isn't the problem. The problem is that guests who already know your name still end up booking through a platform, because your own site gives them no reason to stay. This guide is about fixing that, whether you manage the riad from the medina or from abroad.

Why does a fully booked riad still need its own website?

Because booking platforms bring you guests, but they keep the relationship. The guest books with them, pays them, and comes back through them next year. Commission depends on your contract, often around 15% and sometimes more once you add visibility boosts.

What actually happens is that many travellers search twice. They discover your riad on a platform, then type its name into Google to see more photos, read reviews or find a way to contact you directly. That second search is where your website has to show up, fast and reassuring. If it doesn't exist, loads slowly or looks like it was built in 2015, they go back to the platform and book there.

A website doesn't replace Booking.com. It wins back part of the bookings that could have been direct, and it gives past guests a place to return to.

What should a riad website include?

We see plenty of beautiful riad sites with a sunset rooftop video on the home page, where it still takes five clicks to find what a room costs. Guests want three answers quickly: what does it look like, how much is it, and how do I book. This is what goes on an accommodation site, in order of importance:

What we almost always cut: long paragraphs about "the Moroccan art of living", sliders that move on their own, and gallery pages with 80 photos and no captions. Guests don't read, they look and decide.

Direct bookings: booking engine, enquiry form or WhatsApp?

This is the real technical decision, and the answer depends on the size of your riad and how you already manage availability. If you run the place from abroad, it also depends on who answers guests day to day. There are three approaches, and they can be combined:

The biggest risk is double booking: the same room sold on Booking.com and on your site for the same dates. Before choosing anything, ask exactly how the website calendar will stay in sync with your platforms, or with your channel manager if you use one. If the answer is vague, that's a warning sign.

How do guests find your riad on Google?

There are two searches to win. The first is your riad's name: when someone types it, your site should come up first, above the platforms. It sounds obvious, but plenty of riads don't manage it, because their site is slow, badly titled or barely indexed.

The second is searches like "riad in the medina with pool" or "riad near Jemaa el-Fna". Competition there is tough, and what helps most is:

• a complete Google Business Profile with photos, reception hours and reviews;
• a page for each room and one about the neighbourhood, with text written properly rather than copied;
• a site that's fast on mobile, because Google measures speed;
• the same name, address and phone number everywhere online.

That's ongoing work. If you want to go further, we first assess what your site needs, then run it month by month with a plan for SEO in Marrakech.

How much does a riad website with booking cost?

At Icarvs Studio, a site with online booking or ordering costs MAD 8,000–25,000 (about €740–€2,300). Where you land in that range depends on the number of rooms and languages, the booking approach you pick, and how much photography and copy you already have. Hosting is included, so there's no separate yearly bill. We break down everything that moves a quote in our guide to website costs in Morocco.

To see whether it's worth it, run a quick calculation with your own numbers. Here's an example to adapt:

• Average nightly rate: MAD 1,000 (roughly €90).
• Platform commission: 15%, so MAD 150 a night.
• If the website moves 100 nights a year to direct bookings, you keep an extra MAD 15,000 (about €1,400).

In that example, a mid-range site pays for itself within one season. Your real numbers may be faster or slower, but the calculation tells you quickly whether the project makes sense.

How we build accommodation websites at Icarvs Studio

We never start from a bought theme. First we work out where your guests come from, which languages they speak and how you handle availability today. Then we design the site in Figma and code it so it stays fast on a phone, even on an average connection. Most of our international projects run over WhatsApp and email, so being abroad isn't an obstacle.

The closest project to a riad in our portfolio is Le Bain Blanc, a hammam and spa in Marrakech. The brief was the same: make people want to come before they arrive, then let them book without three rounds of messages.

We took the same approach for Mawli, a Marrakech spa with an editorial site and appointment booking. For a riad, we keep that approach and add what matters for accommodation: rooms, directions and availability sync. All our projects are on our selected work page.

When should you launch your riad website?

Not in the middle of December, when you don't have a spare minute. The right time is before the season you're aiming for, because travellers book Marrakech weeks or even months ahead. For the spring season, February to April, now is when to start.

One practical tip if you manage the riad from abroad: sort out the photos first. Good photography is usually the slowest part to organise, because it needs the rooms empty, clean and well lit, ideally in the morning light of the courtyard. Book it during a quieter week, so the site isn't waiting on pictures when everything else is ready.

Timelines depend on the project. A simple showcase site can be up in about a week, while a site with a calendar and booking takes longer to set up and test. If you have an opening date or a season in mind, tell us from the start and we'll plan around it.

Where to start

Send us a WhatsApp message with these four things and we'll come back with a realistic estimate:

1. Your riad's name and how many rooms it has.
2. How bookings come in today: platforms, a channel manager, WhatsApp.
3. The languages your guests speak.
4. What you already have: photos, logo, copy, an old site.

You can also see what's included in every project on our web design page.