Understanding Destination Website Users Through Website Personas

A photo of two people planning while looking at a laptop.
Jamie Fiedler on a wooded trail in Venice, FL
by Jamie Fiedler
Senior Digital Product Manager

Website personalization is becoming more powerful, with AI revolutionizing how we interact with users. However, even the most advanced tools need to profoundly understand your audience. Website personas are essential in bridging that gap, guiding design choices that cater to real user needs.

Implementing website personas can help DMOs build websites that guide users to the information they need the most, aiding in the conversion process.

What Are Website Personas?

Personas guide website design by focusing on the specific needs of user types.

Think of a persona as a detailed character profile for someone using a website. It’s not a real person, but it’s based on actual user data and behaviors, helping your web development team to understand their needs, goals and preferences. In the travel and tourism industry, these personas capture different types of potential travelers visiting a destination website. Website personas typically include five key parts:

  1. A human element: Basic information, like a name and photo, gives the web persona a human element and helps the developers refer to them easily. This information tends to be basic, without details like age or gender.
  2. Goals and needs: This helps web development teams understand what users want. Do they need fast access to booking info or a rich, interactive experience about a destination’s attractions? Knowing this guides how we design the site.
  3. Behaviors and habits: Think about how people interact with apps or websites they use often, like Instagram. Developers look for these habits and design around them.
  4. Frustrations: What annoys users? Understanding their pain points helps the web team determine how to improve a website so that travel intenders aren’t put off by any functional issues.
  5. Quotes: An actual user quote gives developers insight into who this persona is and makes the data feel more personal.
Simple illustration of a user profile layout with an icon on the left and three blue sections on the right

Website personas are essential because they allow web designers to build sites with an audience's actual needs in mind, rather than relying on personal preferences or assumptions. They provide a clear basis for decision-making, helping justify design choices confidently and preventing distractions from niche ideas or personal projects that don’t benefit most users. Within the travel vertical, this ensures that a destination’s website content and functionality truly connect with their target audience segment.

Personas aren’t just guesses—they’re built using actual research and data about your visitors. 

A graphic of rows and columns of people icons.

Numbers alone can be hard to understand, so website personas turn data into relatable stories about a destination website’s visitors to make it easier to understand who they are and what they need.

Marketing Personas vs. Website Personas

Marketing personas and website personas serve different purposes for destination websites. Marketing personas focus on understanding customer behavior and preferences, using market research and sales data to help marketing teams build brand loyalty and drive conversions. They are broader in scope and guide overall strategy and messaging. In contrast, website personas focus on user behavior, goals and pain points, drawing from user research and website analytics. Improving the user experience keeps website visitors more engaged and more likely to convert to booking a hotel or reserving a table.

Marketing personas identify who a destination’s customers are and what they buy, while website personas focus on the ways they navigate your site, their goals and potential challenges. While marketing personas focus on customer behavior, such as product preferences, website personas dive into user interactions and the tasks they aim to accomplish.

A graphic showcasing the difference between marketing and website personas.

How Personas Help Prioritize Destination Website Features

Personas are powerful tools that help web development teams decide which destination website features to focus on first. They demonstrate what matters most to different types of users, allowing the team to make informed decisions about where to invest time and resources. Let's break this down with a simple example and a step-by-step process.

Here’s an example of a travel website with three personas:

  1. Fox: Tech-savvy millennial who loves unique, Instagram-worthy experiences.
  2. Dana: Busy professional seeking efficient, hassle-free travel planning.
  3. Walter: Retired adventurer interested in cultural immersion and off-the-beaten-path destinations.

Using personas like Fox, Dana, and Walter, a web developer can objectively decide which website features to develop first. This approach ensures that the features the development team prioritizes align with the needs of the destination’s most important users, leading to a more satisfying and engaging website experience for everyone. 

As another example, here are some potential features for the website:

  • AI-powered trip planner
  • Virtual reality destination previews
  • Local experience booking platform
  • One-click business travel organizer
  • Cultural immersion workshops finder

The DMO may want to implement all of them, but the development team needs to know which ones are most important to the largest number of users, i.e. potential visitors. To assign importance to each persona, the web team will work with the DMO to decide how much of its audience each persona represents. This helps the team focus on the features that will make the biggest difference for most users. Using research and data, a development team can give each persona a percentage to show how important they are, ensuring design decisions are based on real user needs.

A table with "Persona Name" as the column and "Feature/Request" as the row.

Personas help prioritize website features by demonstrating which ones matter most to different types of users. 

Think of it this way: if you know one group of visitors makes up a big part of your audience, you’ll want to make sure features that benefit them get top priority. 

The Role of AI in Website Persona Development

As AI and personalization technologies advance, website personas will become more sophisticated and dynamic. Instead of static profiles, we may soon see "living" personas that automatically update based on real-time user behavior data and machine learning insights. However, the fundamental principle remains unchanged: successful websites are built on a deep understanding of user needs, goals and behaviors.

Remember that personas are not just documents to create and file away—they're powerful tools that should actively guide design decisions and feature prioritization. By working with web development partners who put users at the center of the design process through well-crafted personas, DMOs can create more intuitive, engaging and successful websites that truly serve their audience's needs.

By embracing website personas as a core part of your design process, you're not just building a better website—you're creating better user experiences that resonate with real users and drive meaningful results in terms of visitation and booking.

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