Inn a Riverwalk – Edwards, Colorado
A Digital Front Door Worthy of the Vail Valley
The Inn at Riverwalk has earned its reputation the old-fashioned way: warm staff, a prime location between Vail and Beaver Creek, and an atmosphere that feels personal rather than corporate. For family trips, ski weekends, and river adventures, guests keep coming back.
The website, however, wasn’t keeping pace. The existing site was difficult to navigate on mobile, offered limited visibility into room and condo availability, and gave visitors little reason to explore local attractions or subscribe to the blog. For an independent property competing with larger resort brands in one of Colorado’s most searched travel corridors, a stronger digital presence wasn’t optional.
We partnered with the Inn’s marketing agency to redesign and rebuild the site from the ground up — using WordPress with custom Gutenberg blocks, a TravelClick (iHotelier) reservation integration, and a content architecture designed for a small team to manage without developer support.
Quick Facts
- Industry: Hospitality / Boutique Hotel
- Services: Web Design, WordPress Development, API Integration, SEO, Accessibility Compliance, Cookie Consent
- Platform: WordPress (custom Gutenberg blocks)
- Compliance: WCAG 2.2 AA, GDPR, CCPA
- Timeline: October 2023 contract signing; launched February 2025 (extended due to TravelClick integration coordination)
Before our redesign.
After.
The Situation
The Inn’s previous site had served its purpose, but it was showing its age. On mobile — where the majority of travelers research and book accommodations — the experience was difficult. Rooms and condos were presented together without clear distinction, making it hard for guests to understand what they were booking. The booking flow required guests to leave the site entirely with no context about availability.
Beyond reservations, the site offered little to encourage exploration. The blog had potential but lacked the structure to turn first-time readers into subscribers. Local attraction information was minimal, despite the Inn’s prime position as a base for Vail Valley dining, hiking, and recreation. The marketing team had limited ability to update content without developer involvement.
The new site needed to solve all of this while matching the Inn’s brand: warm, personal, and rooted in the landscape around it.
What We Built
Rooms and Condos as Distinct, Bookable Content Types
The first structural decision was separating hotel rooms and condo rentals into distinct CMS content types. This gave the marketing team a clean, manageable backend for updating inventory, photos, and descriptions without touching page templates. Each room and condo page features on-brand photography, clear accommodation details, and a prominent Book Now button that links directly into the TravelClick (iHotelier) reservation engine.
We built the TravelClick integration to surface real-time availability, allowing guests to filter by date and see only open rooms — a significant upgrade from a generic booking link. Coordinating directly with TravelClick’s technical team extended the project timeline, but the integration work was worth it: the result is a path from interest to reservation that stays on-brand throughout and reduces friction at the point of conversion.
Custom reservations interface integrated with TravelClick (iHotelier).
Individual room pages give guests clear information and a direct path to booking.
A Filterable Local Guide That Gives Guests a Reason to Stay Longer on the Site
One of the most distinctive features of the redesign is the interactive local attractions map, built on the Google Maps API with a fully custom front-end. Guests can filter nearby dining, shopping, trails, wine and spirits, family activities, and dog-friendly options by category — each represented with a distinct icon. Selecting a location opens a custom popup with details, directions, and a share option.
This feature does double duty: it serves guests planning their trip and positions the Inn as a resource for anyone exploring the Edwards and Vail Valley area, not just overnight visitors. Average time on site has grown 35% since launch, and the map is a primary driver of that engagement.
The custom filterable map covers dining, trails, shopping, family activities, dog-friendly spots, and more.
SEO and Schema Built for Local Search Competition
Ranking as an independent property in the Vail Valley means competing with well-resourced resort brands. We implemented JSON-LD schemas for Hotel, Breadcrumb, and Article content types to improve how Google reads and surfaces the site. Combined with an industry-standard SEO plugin configured for local search priorities, the site entered Google’s top-5 results for targeted keywords including “Edwards CO boutique hotel” and “Vail Valley lodging” shortly after launch.
All key pages score green across Core Web Vitals on desktop and mobile — covering performance, accessibility, SEO, and best practices. That’s a baseline we hold to on every build, and it matters: page speed and accessibility signals factor directly into search rankings.
A Blog and Newsletter Built to Build an Audience
The previous blog existed but wasn’t converting casual readers into repeat visitors. We restructured it with category filters, a cleaner article layout, and subscribe callouts integrated throughout — not just in the footer. Newsletter signups have grown 15% month-over-month since launch.
The blog now serves a dual purpose: content for guests actively planning a trip, and an ongoing reason for past guests and Vail Valley regulars to stay connected with the Inn year-round.
The redesigned blog features category filters and subscribe callouts that turn readers into long-term subscribers.
Accessibility and Privacy Compliance Baked In from the Start
The site is built to WCAG 2.2 AA standards throughout — not retrofitted, but designed and developed with accessibility as a baseline requirement. We also configured cookie consent to comply with GDPR and California’s CCPA, with a policy and consent flow that covers the Inn’s international and domestic guest base.
White Whale Web has been an incredible partner to us at Colvita. As our go-to website team, they are consistently responsive, talented, and a true extension of our agency. They’re not only amazing developers — they’re also incredibly kind humans who make every project more enjoyable. They can build anything you ask for and, even better, they explain things in a way that actually makes sense (which is rare and so appreciated when working with developers). Whether it’s a full site build or a quick fix, they always deliver high-quality work with clarity and care. We’re so lucky to work with them!
Results
Since launching in February 2025, the site has delivered measurable improvements across every metric that matters for an independent hospitality property:
- 18% increase in direct booking completions — attributed to cleaner room differentiation and the streamlined TravelClick integration
- 35% growth in average time on site — driven by the interactive local attractions map and restructured blog content
- Top-5 Google rankings for targeted local keywords including “Edwards CO boutique hotel” and “Vail Valley lodging”
- 15% month-over-month growth in newsletter subscriptions — from the blog and subscribe callout placement throughout the site
- Green Core Web Vitals scores across key pages on both desktop and mobile
- Gold Award, 2025 — Website & Mobile Sites, Hotel/Resort & Lodging category