About the project
Emerson Zanzibar is a Stone Town hospitality group made up of two heritage boutique hotels, Emerson Spice and Emerson on Hurumzi, and Emerson’s Zanzibar Foundation, the group’s arts and culture fund.
Simply IT began working with Emerson Zanzibar on 21 October 2019 and has built every version of the group’s web presence since. Over seven years, the client’s structure changed three times, and each time we adapted their websites to match.
The latest project is the new Emerson Spice website: a heritage hotel website that reflects the character of Stone Town, available in 14 languages and built for search visibility.
Seven Years, Six Websites
Our work with Emerson Zanzibar has followed the group through every stage of its growth:
- 2019 – Three separate websites. We started with one website for each hotel and one for the Foundation.
- 2022 – One umbrella website. When the group came together under one umbrella, we rebuilt the three sites as a single website covering all three entities.
- 2026 – Two new websites. When the group separated again, we developed two new websites: Emerson Foundation and Emerson Spice.
Six websites, seven years, and a client whose structure has changed three times, with Simply IT adapting at every stage.
2022 – Umbrella Website
The Emerson group came together under one umbrella, we built this single website which grew to 4K visitors a month.
Challenges
Each change in the group’s structure brought a new set of requirements. The websites needed to:
- Follow a business structure that changed three times without losing brand recognition.
- Present heritage boutique hotels in a way that reflects the history and character of Stone Town.
- Reach international guests in their own languages.
- Protect search visibility each time the web presence was restructured.
- Stay consistent with the hotel’s social media presence.
- Handle table bookings at their two unique and iconic restaurants: A Rooftop Tea House and a stunning Secret Garden that hosts live music perfomances.
- All this with a major change of domain name from www.emersonzanzibar.com to www.emersonspice.com
Website Design & Development
The new Emerson Spice website was designed to bring the hotel’s heritage experience online and make it easy for guests to plan their stay.
The design focused on:
- Full-width imagery that showcases the hotel’s architecture, rooms and rooftop dining.
- Dedicated pages for accommodation, dining, events and discovering Stone Town.
- Clear navigation with a direct “Book Rooms” link to the hotel’s booking engine.
- WhatsApp chat so guests can contact the hotel instantly.
- Mobile-first responsive design.
- One-form Restaurant Table Reservations that could handle two restaurants, different opening times in all 14 languages.
SEO & Social Media
Search visibility was built into the website from the start, so the hotel can be found by travellers researching where to stay in Stone Town.
Our SEO work included:
- Technical SEO best practices.
- Optimized page titles and meta descriptions.
- Structured heading hierarchy.
- SEO for every language version.
- Content around Stone Town, dining and events.
Mtandao wa kijamii
Alongside the website, Simply IT has supported Emerson Spice’s social media, organically growing their Instagram followers from 2K in 2020 to 12.4K today. Keeping the hotel’s online presence consistent across its website, Facebook and Instagram.
Social Media & Review Integration
Whilst including their latest Instagram posts on the website it was also important to automatically include the latest Google reviews, verified and kept up-to-date on the website also to build trust with guests.
Multilingual Website in 14 Languages
Emerson Spice welcomes guests from around the world, so the website was built as a multilingual platform available in 14 languages.
Visitors can switch language directly from the header, with versions including French, German, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese and right-to-left Arabic. The skill is in displaying titles and menu options in such a way that length of words and right-to-left orientation does not break the webpage layout.
Each language version is structured to be indexed by search engines, helping the hotel reach travellers who search in their own language to see the Emerson Spice brand in AI and traditional searches.
Multilingual websites are proven to increase visibility, trust and conversions. Data from leading global research firms and analytics providers establishes that multilingual websites radically boost visibility by up to 327%, grow conversion rates by up to 70%, and dramatically build trust among non-native speakers.
Project Deliverables
The completed project included:
- Website design and development.
- Heritage hotel brand presentation.
- Multilingual website editable and stored in 14 different languages.
- Multilingual Search engine optimization.
- Booking engine integration.
- Two Restaurant menu email table reservation enquiry form
- WhatsApp integration.
- Responsive mobile design.
- Social media support.
Emerson Spice Project - Simply IT Resources by %
Results
28 days after the switch to a new domain the visitors to the website continues to increase with good visibility and 624 visitors.
Six websites, seven years, and a client whose structure and domain name has changed three times. Through every change, Emerson Zanzibar has relied on Simply IT to keep its web presence aligned with the business, and today Emerson Spice has a multilingual heritage hotel website that welcomes guests in 14 languages.
Restaurant Booking Enquiries
The Restaurant Table reservation form was tested fully. Since 2021 Emerson Spice has received 10,282 restaurant bookings via their old website. Within a month of the new website going live they had clocked up 294 booking enquiries – some now arriving on other languages.
Emerson Spice says:
We have worked with Simply IT for many years. They consistently provide responsive & intuitive service, offering, not surprisingly, 'simple' solutions (!) in an ever changing technological environment.
