One Website for Multiple Vacation Rentals
Suppose you rent out a cottage with a fenced garden and an apartment above the village bakery. One guest wants somewhere to bring a dog. Another wants to walk to dinner. Both should be able to see the difference in a few seconds, then find out whether the place they want is free.
One website can do that well. Give the rentals a shared homepage, give each one its own page, and give guests a way to search dates across the properties. Our Ocean Villa demo shows how this works with two villas. See the LodgeWP demos.
Use the homepage to help guests choose
Start with what your rentals have in common. If they’re all on the same farm, show the farm and explain how the cottages sit around it. If they’re spread across a town, give the town some context and say where each place is. A shared homepage works best when guests can tell why the properties belong together.
Then give each rental a card with a photo, the number of guests it sleeps, and one useful difference. “Sleeps four, with a fenced garden and parking at the door” tells me more than “Charming cottage with everything you need.” Put the location on the card if your properties are in different neighborhoods. In LodgeWP, the Accommodations section uses each property’s featured photo, excerpt, and key details for these cards. See how accommodation cards work in LodgeWP.
Give each rental a page of its own
In the Ocean Villa demo, Villa Azure and Villa Coral Bay each have a page with their own photos and calendar. Follow that approach when guests choose a particular rental by name. A group should be able to send each other a link to the exact villa they’re considering. Explore the Ocean Villa demo.
Put the facts that differ on those individual pages. Think bed sizes, stairs, parking, pet rules, and who can use the pool. If one terrace is private and the other opens onto a shared courtyard, say so on both pages. You can keep general information, such as who runs the properties and how to get in touch, in one place.
Give the booking button a clear destination. On a property page it should take guests to the calendar for that property. LodgeWP has a Booking Form section on each accommodation page where you choose the WP Booking System calendar and form to display. See how to set up LodgeWP booking pages.
Let people search by date
Some guests will pick a place first. Others know they can only travel on a particular weekend. Give the second group an Availability page so they can search across your rentals. A couple looking for three nights can then see which places are open before comparing photos and beds.
In WP Booking System, create a calendar for each rental that can be booked separately. Link each calendar to the matching property page. In LodgeWP, add the WP Booking System Embed section to the Availability page and choose Search Widget. This option needs the Search extension for WP Booking System. The calendar links send guests to the right property from the results. See the LodgeWP booking options and learn how to link calendars to pages.
If you also list your properties on Airbnb or Booking.com, match each website calendar to its own listing. Calendar feeds share availability. You’ll still need to set rates and rules on each platform, and each service checks for updates on its own schedule. Read the WP Booking System calendar sync guide.
Test a weekend when only one place is free
Before you go live, pick a weekend when one rental is unavailable and another is open. Search for those dates on your phone, open the available rental, and go through the booking form. Check that the name, dates, and price agree on the page and in the email. Then open the reservation in WordPress and make sure it landed on the right calendar.
If you sell four interchangeable double rooms under one room type, check that your booking system can track how many are left. If you let guests book either the whole property or its individual rooms, check how a booking in one option blocks the others. Work out how those reservations affect each other before you build the search page. See which booking setups WP Booking System supports.
