How Lazarev.agency redesigned Dirs21 to win more direct hotel bookings
Project:
the project
A booking experience built to keep guests moving toward paymentÂ
Dirs21 is a commission-free hotel booking platform where guests book directly with hotels. The underlying product was strong, but the web app lagged the experience guests now expect from large booking sites.Â
The booking flow confused people, so they left before paying. Unclear payment steps weakened trust at the exact moment a guest decides to commit, while faster competitors raised the bar.
Lazarev.agency redesigned Dirs21's commission-free booking app into a guided flow that moves guests from room selection to confirmed payment. Guests pick a room, see pricing clearly, add optional services, and reach checkout without losing their place. The same experience holds up on mobile and desktop and keeps hotels less dependent on third-party online travel agencies (OTAs).
The Project’s
Discovery Phase
An interface built to guide guests toward booking
On Dirs21's room listing, comparing options and finding what mattered for a booking decision took real effort.Â
Lazarev.agency gave the platform a clean, light interface organized around the choices guests make: which room, at what price, with which amenities. Each room leads with its photo, price, and defining details, while a persistent booking summary follows the reservation across a clear four-step path from availability to confirmation.Â
With the layout surfacing what matters, more guests keep moving toward a completed booking.
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Date and room controls to keep guests out of dead ends
Picking dates on Dirs21 once meant working blind, with no clear signal of what was open or what a stay would cost. Lazarev.agency rebuilt Dirs21's availability page so guests set their dates, room count, and party size in one connected control, then filter by price, bed type, and rate to a matching set of rooms.Â
Unavailable dates are marked before a guest commits to them, and live pricing shows what the stay costs as the choices change. Fewer guests hit a dead-end early, so more of them reach a room they can book.
A familiar layout to make extras easy to add
Dirs21's booking journey moves through four steps, and Lazarev.agency positioned optional services as the second, right after a guest chooses a room and before checkout. The placement is deliberate: the offer lands at the point of highest intent, when a guest has committed to the stay but has not yet paid.Â
Each service sits on the same card layout guests just used to pick a room, so adding a meal or parking asks nothing new of them, and the running booking summary updates the total as items go in. Presented at this moment in the flow, extras read as a natural part of booking, and more reservations leave with add-ons attached.Â
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A confirmation step to close the booking with confidence
On Dirs21, the seconds after payment decide whether a guest trusts the booking or reaches for the phone to check if it went through.Â
Lazarev.agency designed Dirs21's confirmation step to settle that doubt immediately, with a success state naming the dates, rooms, and guests exactly as booked. Guests can save the confirmation as a record or send it to their calendar, so the reservation sits somewhere they can find it later. A booking a guest can see and keep is one they are far less likely to cancel or call about.
A clear path to Pay held together across devices
The payment step is where a booking is completed or abandoned. If a guest cannot see what to do next, the whole booking they built can fall apart at the last moment.Â
Lazarev.agency gave every step one clear action and made the final one the clearest action on the screen. The same guided flow works on phone, tablet, and desktop, so Dirs21 holds onto bookings across every device its guests use.
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FAQ
How does hotel booking platform design increase completed bookings?
Most bookings fail because something in the flow got confusing. A date picker that didn't work on mobile. A room comparison that required too much scrolling. A CTA that wasn't visible at the moment of decision. Working through each of these friction points: clear visual hierarchy, navigation that doesn't make users think, and CTAs placed where the decision actually happens, directly connects design quality to booking completion rate.
What role does design play in upselling hotel services?
Timing and presentation decide whether an upsell feels helpful or intrusive. Offered too early, it feels pushy, too late, and the user has already mentally checked out. The design question is where in the journey someone is most open to adding something. Extra services presented as cards at the right moment: visible enough to consider, easy enough to skip, make upgrades feel like options rather than obstacles.
How does responsive design affect booking conversion rates?
A flow that works perfectly on desktop but breaks on mobile loses your users. Touch targets too small to tap, forms that require zooming, layouts that collapse awkwardly: each one is a reason to abandon. Adaptive layouts, controls sized for a thumb, and real-time input feedback all remove that risk. The device someone books on shouldn't determine whether they complete the booking.
How do clear payment flows build trust at checkout?
Checkout is where hesitation peaks. Users are about to hand over card details to a platform they may have just discovered. Anything unclear: a vague total, an unexpected fee, a form that looks unfinished, gives them a reason to stop. Walking users through each step with visible progress, plain-language billing summaries, and forms that ask only what's needed turns confidence at checkout from a brand promise into a design outcome.
How can good design help a booking platform compete with large OTAs?
Large OTAs win on inventory. Independent platforms win on experience. A cluttered interface full of upsells and dark patterns erodes trust; a clean, guided flow builds it. Faster room selection, straightforward comparison, and a visible commission-free value proposition that doesn't get buried give users a reason to return, an advantage that's hard to replicate at OTA scale.
Why do call-to-action buttons matter so much in booking flows?
A user who's ready to book but can't immediately see how to do it will leave. CTAs are the moment the design either captures intent or loses it. Placing them where users naturally look after making a decision, keeping the language direct, and making them visually distinct without turning the interface into a sales page makes the next step feel obvious.
Does Dirs21's booking flow work on mobile?
Yes. Lazarev.agency built Dirs21's guided booking flow to work the same on phone, tablet, and desktop, so the device a guest books on does not decide whether they finish. Adaptive layouts keep room selection, extras, and payment usable on every screen.Â
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