Hotel photography: the shot list, choosing a photographer and delivery terms

Hotel photography is the planned production of a property's own image set, shot to answer a guest's questions before they ask them. It needs a shot list by room type, a schedule that follows the light, prepared rooms, a written agreement on rights and retouching, and files sized and named for every channel.

The shoot is booked for Tuesday. Nobody has decided which rooms go first, housekeeping has not been told, and the contract says nothing about who owns the files. The images arrive, look good, and cannot be used on the booking sites at the size they were delivered. This article gives you, in order: a shot list, a day schedule, a room preparation list, the questions for the photographer, and a delivery specification. If you are also preparing a listing from scratch, start with what to prepare before a hotel goes live on booking sites.

What is hotel photography, and what is it for?#

Hotel photography is a planned production, not a photographer with a good camera: a defined set of images, shot in a fixed order, that answers a guest's questions about the property before they ask them.

The set has three jobs. It helps a guest recognise the place and choose it. It answers the objections that stop a booking: room size, bathroom, view, distance to the beach. And it stays usable across channels without a second shoot.

A portfolio image and a listing image are different products. The portfolio sells the photographer; the listing sells the room. The same frame rarely does both well, so judge a photographer's hotel work, not their best single picture.

The images outlive the shoot by years, so the decisions that matter most are made before it: shot list, usage rights, sizes and file names. Name one person from marketing to own the job, with the authority to interrupt housekeeping and front office, because a shoot disturbs both. The same set feeds the booking-site listing, the hotel's own website, the Google profile, travel agencies and printed material, so plan it once for all of them.

What should a hotel shoot? A shot list by room type and public area#

Shoot every room type you sell, in the order a guest meets the property, and give each type enough frames to describe it honestly.

Start from the rate sheet, not from the best room. Make one entry per room type sold, including the type that is hardest to sell, because that is the one a photo has to work for. Treat the booking-site minimums as a floor, not a target: Booking.com's Partner Help asks for at least 10 photos, at least four of each room or unit and at least one of the bathroom and toilet, and at least 24 covering all apartment types for aparthotels (updated 17 August 2026).

Shoot public areas in the order a guest meets them: arrival and signage, entrance, lobby, front desk, corridor or lift, pool, restaurant, bar, spa, meeting rooms, parking. Then cover the objections a guest looks for: bathroom, wardrobe and storage, workspace, air conditioning, the window view exactly as it is, and the walking distance to the beach or the lift.

For food and drink, photograph the breakfast spread as it is actually served, one signature dish, the bar at service and the terrace in use. For exterior and access, take the facade in daylight, the entrance at night, the road in, the car park and the nearest landmark a guest will use to find you.

Never put in frame: other people's logos, staff without consent, ID cards, bills, contracts or guest belongings. Booking.com does not allow images with personally identifiable information (updated 17 August 2026).

The shot list skeleton#

How do you plan a shoot day around the light?#

Build the day around the sun, not around the photographer's convenience: assign each space to the hour when its light is best and keep one backup day.

Walk the property a week ahead at three times of day and note which rooms face east and which face west. East rooms are best early, west rooms late, and the difference decides the order. Midday sun flattens a facade and hardens shadows, so shoot exteriors and the pool early, before guests and before the water is disturbed, or in the last hour of light.

For interiors, indirect or overcast light is easier to work with than hard sun. Curtains and sheers control contrast, and every practical light in the room is switched on. Shoot food and public areas outside service: the breakfast buffet before guests arrive, the restaurant set for dinner in the afternoon, the bar before opening.

Keep one room out of sale or blocked for the day, and write a backup date into the contract for weather. On the day, the hotel supplies a housekeeping runner to reset rooms, a front office contact for access, and a vehicle and driver for the access and exterior shots.

How do you prepare the rooms before the photographer arrives?#

Treat every photographed room as a check-in: bed freshly made, surfaces clear, lights on, and nothing in frame that a guest would not find on arrival.

Booking.com's own preparation list is a good standard: curtains open, lights on, freshly made beds, and no laundry, wires or cables showing (Partner Help, updated 17 August 2026). Remove rather than hide: price lists, staff notices, cleaning carts, spare linen, bins, cables behind the television, the remote control lined up with the bedside.

Nothing identifiable goes in frame: no ID cards, bills, contracts, guest belongings or staff name badges, because Booking.com does not allow images with personally identifiable information (updated 17 August 2026).

Style lightly and identically. The same towel fold, cushion arrangement and fruit bowl in every room of one type makes the set read as one property rather than six. In the bathroom: toilet lid down, towels folded the same way, amenities arranged, no cleaning products, mirror free of fingerprints.

Check what the frame actually includes: the corridor seen through the doorway, the view from the window, the air-conditioning unit, the socket by the bed. The housekeeping lead walks each room against the shot list and signs it off before the photographer enters, so the photographer never waits on a room.

What should you ask a photographer before you book?#

Ask for the shot list, the usage rights and the delivery specification in writing before you discuss the fee, because those three decide whether the images are usable at all.

Look at the portfolio for hotel work in your category, and ask for one complete set from a single property, not a highlight reel. Ask what was styled and who styled it.

The quote should list cost lines rather than one number: shoot day and crew, styling and assistant, retouching per image, usage licence, travel and equipment, the backup day, and the terms for a reshoot. On rights, establish who owns the copyright, which channels you may use the images on, for how long, in which territories, and whether you may pass them to booking sites and travel agencies. Put the answer in the contract.

Agree the retouching limit before the shoot, not after: colour, dust and lens correction, yes; removing a building from the view or widening a room, no. On delivery, specify the number of images, format, sizes, colour space, file naming, delivery date, and whether the unedited files are included. For people in frame, guests and staff need permission, and the contract should say who obtains it and keeps the record. Add a reshoot clause for weather, an unready room or an overrun renovation.

How honest does a hotel photo have to be?#

Honest enough that the guest who arrives recognises the room: in Türkiye the promotion must match the Ministry certificate, and Booking.com asks properties to set accurate expectations (updated 17 August 2026).

The Regulation on the Qualifications of Tourism Facilities requires a facility's promotion to match its Ministry certificate and give accurate information, bans symbols suggesting stars outside the certified class, and bans names for units the facility does not have (mevzuat.gov.tr (opens in a new tab), consolidated text, Article 16(2) and 16(3), 2026). In practice that means no facility, beach, pool or view the certified property does not have, and no dressing a standard room to look like a suite.

Booking.com's Partner Help asks properties to keep photos property-related and to set accurate expectations (updated 17 August 2026). Distortion is an accuracy problem: extreme wide-angle and fisheye photos are on the platform's list of images to avoid, and a room that looks twice its size becomes a complaint at the desk. Over-processing is on the same list: heavy HDR, over-saturation and strong contrast make a real room look like a different one.

Photograph the view exactly as a guest sees it from the window, including the car park or the neighbouring roof, because the guest will see it too. If you also use generated or heavily edited images, work through an honesty checklist for AI-generated and heavily edited hotel images.

Describe the duty in general terms and confirm your own case, dates and penalties with a legal adviser; this article is not legal advice.

What sizes and file names should you deliver, and how do you keep the set current?#

Deliver one master set at the largest size the channels accept, named so anyone can find the right file, and plan the refresh before the renovation ends.

Booking.com's shooting requirements are landscape images only, at least 2048 x 1080 pixels and preferably 4000 x 3000; 360-degree images need a 2:1 ratio and at least 1280 x 900 pixels (Partner Help, updated 17 August 2026). Its upload rules accept JPEG or BMP, at least 300 x 300 pixels, ideally 2048 x 1536, and no larger than 1.3 MB per file (updated 19 August 2026).

Shoot and retouch once at the largest size, then derive the website, booking-site and Google versions from that master. Never upscale a small file to fill a large slot.

For file naming, use property code, space, feature, sequence and version, in lowercase with no Turkish characters or spaces. Underscores separate the fields and hyphens join the words inside a field: for example, otel01standart-odadeniz-01_v2. Alt text and captions belong to the website, not to the file name; write them once per image and keep them with the set.

Keeping the set current after a renovation#

Refresh whenever the property changes and the photo would mislead: any renovation, a new room type, a changed view, a new outlet, a rebrand, and a full refresh every few years regardless. Keep the contract, the usage licence and the permission forms in the same folder as the files, because the next marketing manager will need them. For the wider picture of where the set lives online, see the hotel website checklist for content and the booking path and photos and facts on a hotel's Google Business Profile.

What to do next#

Before you call a photographer, write the shot list from your rate sheet and the room preparation list from your housekeeping routine, then send both with the four contract clauses: shot list, usage licence, retouching limit and delivery specification. The shot list decides what is photographed, the schedule and preparation decide how, the contract decides whether you may use the result, and honesty decides whether the guest who arrives stays a guest.