Rialto Vacations: Booking a timeshare like a hotel
A full B2C redesign of a timeshare travel marketplace: search, resort detail, room selection and checkout rebuilt for clarity, trust and conversion.
The redesigned checkout (guest information, then payment), with total costs, taxes and cancellation terms visible the whole way through.
[ The problem ]
Booking a timeshare rental should feel like booking a hotel. On the old site it did not: search and resort pages were dated and hard to compare, and checkout buried travelers in dense forms with unclear pricing. In travel, unclear pricing is not a cosmetic issue. It is the moment trust leaves.
[ Goals ]
Comparison - travelers scan rooms, pricing, amenities and location without effort. Context - the map, the resort and the details stay together. Transparent checkout - costs and cancellation terms visible at every step. Mobile speed - book on the go without pinching or hunting.
Approach
I redesigned the journey in the order travelers experience it. Search and discovery first: a split view balancing resort information with an interactive map, so location context is part of the comparison rather than a separate tab. Then the resort page, rebuilt as a logical, digestible sequence (rooms, gallery, fees, amenities, location), with a persistent booking module holding dates, pricing and availability while guests scroll. Checkout came last: two structured steps with an order summary that never disappears. A design system underneath keeps all of it consistent, desktop and mobile.
[ Scope and constraints ]
[ The work ]
The surfaces.
Resort detail
Answer a traveler's questions in the order they ask them.
Rebuilt as rooms, gallery, fees, amenities and location in sequence, with a persistent booking module keeping dates, pricing and availability visible while guests scroll.
Exploration to selection without losing context.
[ The system underneath ]
[ Results ]
2 | Checkout steps, down from a wall of forms 5 | Surfaces, search through payment 1 | Order summary, visible end to end
The marketplace now reads like a modern travel product: faster comparison, a resort overview that answers questions in order, and a checkout with no surprises. The persistent booking module and order summary do quiet work throughout: the price a traveler saw is the price they confirm, which is what trust looks like in an interface.
What I carry forward
Rebuilding checkout to two steps taught me that reducing drop-off is rarely about fewer fields. It is about never letting the total, the terms or the traveler's confidence out of sight.