Tullyglass Hotel — Case Study

Overview

How do you take a well-loved local hotel and have it stand confidently next to the high-end venues it now competes with?

Tullyglass is a long-standing hotel with a loyal following — known for warmth, service and a real sense of place. The previous website did the basics, but didn't carry the weight of the experience guests actually have when they arrive. The brief was to refresh and push forward: a digital home that matches the level the hotel is operating at today.

That meant more than a visual refresh. The new site had to read as confidently luxurious — every interaction considered — and turn the homepage into a working revenue tool, with weddings, events and dining each given the space they need to convert browsers into enquiries.

The Challenge

Reposition against high-end competitors
Balance heritage with a modern, premium feel
Drive enquiries for weddings, events & dining
Keep the site fast, despite the design ambition

My Role

Strategy & site planning
Custom WordPress theme build
Microinteractions & motion implementation
Performance, accessibility & launch

Deliverables

Full custom WordPress build
Weddings, events & dining sections
Booking integration & enquiry flows
Editor-friendly content tooling

The Process

Considered
at Every Step

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Discovery

Audited the existing site, mapped the competitor set Tullyglass now sits against, and spent time with the team to understand which revenue streams — weddings, events, dining, rooms — needed the most lift online.

Strategy

Mapped a site structure that gave each revenue stream room to breathe, with clear pathways from the homepage to enquiry. Set ground rules for tone, pace and visual restraint that would carry through every page.

Design

Translating the design direction into a working system — generous typography, unhurried layouts, refined photography and quiet motion. Microinteractions built to feel earned, not decorative: a hover here, a reveal there, never showing off.

Development

Custom WordPress theme tuned for performance — careful image handling, lazy loading, and a content model that gives the team flexible building blocks for every page without ever letting the design break.

Launch

Phased rollout with stakeholder reviews at every gate, careful redirect planning to protect organic traffic, and hands-on training so the team could pick up the new tooling and run with it from day one.

Step 1 / 5

The Solution

Built to
Compete.

A site that carries the weight of the experience — confident, considered, and quietly persuasive. Every section earning its place, every interaction tuned to the brand.

tullyglass.com

Revenue
Sections

Weddings, events and dining each given the space and structure they need to convert. Clear narrative, considered photography, and enquiry pathways tuned for each audience — no shared template shortcuts.

Quiet
Microinteractions

Motion and microinteractions used sparingly and with intent — a hover that feels earned, a transition that signals quality. Polish that registers without ever stealing attention from the content.

Editor-Ready
WordPress

A custom WordPress theme with a flexible block library — the team can build out new pages, refresh the homepage and update offers without ever leaving the design system. The site stays sharp because keeping it sharp is easy.

Reflections

What I
Learned.

Repositioning a beloved business is different work to building from scratch. These are the lessons I'd carry into the next one.

Restraint reads as luxury

The biggest lever on a luxury site is what you leave out. Generous space, fewer competing elements, slower transitions — building for the calmest version of every page held the bar higher than chasing more.

Microinteractions need a brief

Motion is easy to add and easy to overdo. Working through each microinteraction with intent — what it's saying, why it's there, how it behaves under reduced motion — kept the build feeling considered rather than decorated.

Revenue sections aren't templates

Weddings, events and dining each have their own audience, objections and pace. Building them around a shared template would have been faster — giving each its own structure and tooling is what paid back.

How do you take a well-loved local hotel and have it stand confidently next to the high-end venues it now competes with?

Consideredat Every Step

Built toCompete.

RevenueSections

QuietMicrointeractions