WordPress website development for a campsite

The “Oškalns” campsite is in Drabeši Parish, Cēsis Municipality. This campsite website project started with a simple need: guests had to find the campsite’s services, cabin prices and nearby sights in one place, and be able to book online. CREATING.LV built the campsite a WordPress website with a booking system of our own. The project was handed over in 2017.

For a small accommodation provider, bookings often come by phone or email. The website had to allow bookings on the site itself and, at the same time, make sure that both the owner and the guest learn about each booking straight away. The site also had language versions.

CREATING.LV built the campsite website on WordPress, including its visual design, and created our own booking system with email notifications in it. The scope of work:

• design and usability;
• information about the campsite’s services, cabin prices and sights;
• an in-house booking system linked to the owner’s and the client’s email;
• language versions with WPML;
• galleries and a Google map;
• a contact form.

No ready-made plugin or external platform, such as Booking.com, was used for bookings: we built an in-house booking system into the website. This way the campsite website is also the place to book, and the booking does not take place on a third-party platform.

In practice, this means that guests go from the information about cabins and prices to booking on the same site and in the same design, rather than being sent to another address.

There is also a difference in how guests see the campsite. On a booking platform, the accommodation is one of many, offers from other places are shown next to it, and the booking follows the platform’s rules, which usually include a commission. On its own website, the booking takes place in the campsite’s name and in an environment that contains only this campsite’s information.

The booking system is linked to the campsite owner’s and the client’s email. When a booking is made, both sides receive a notification:

• the owner learns about the new booking;
• the client keeps an email about their booking.

This way a booking does not get lost among calls and letters: it is made on the website, and both sides have written confirmation. The guest has something to refer back to before the trip, and the owner does not have to learn about a new booking through other channels.

When planning a similar booking system, it is worth deciding at the start what the owner’s notification and the guest’s email will contain — for example, whether the guest should also receive directions and the accommodation’s contact details — and which address the owner’s notifications should go to if several people handle bookings.

Before booking, guests need to understand what the campsite offers and what it costs. That is why the website brings together descriptions of the campsite’s services and the cabin prices. Prices are visible before booking, so guests can choose the most suitable cabin without contacting the owner first.

Nearby sights are described separately. For a campsite outside a town this is essential information — guests can plan not only their stay but also what to do in Cēsis Municipality.

The website’s language versions were built with WPML — a WordPress plugin for multilingual sites. It lets the information about services, prices and the surrounding area be offered in several languages on one site, with each page having its own translated version.

WPML links each translated page to the original, so the language switcher can open the translation of the same page rather than the home page. Translations are managed in the same WordPress admin as the rest of the content, so a separate site for each language is not needed. For tourist accommodation, language versions mean that guests can read about the services and cabin prices in the language they understand best. At the same time they require care: if a price or service description is changed in one language, the change also has to be made in the others, otherwise the language versions will contain different information. About WPML and its alternative — in the article WPML or Polylang for a multilingual WordPress website?

In the galleries, guests can look around the campsite before the trip. When choosing accommodation, photos complement the cabin descriptions and prices: guests see where they will stay before booking. Several galleries allow the photos to be organised by theme rather than shown in one long list.

A Google map shows where the campsite is and helps people find their way. For a campsite outside a town, a map on the website lets guests find the route without asking the owner.

If a guest has a question before booking, they can ask it in the contact form. This keeps bookings and questions separate: bookings are made in the system, while questions are asked in the contact form. In the form, the question can be written right there on the website, without looking for an email address or opening a separate email program.

The website’s visual design is CREATING.LV’s work. Because the booking system is also our development, its look could be created together with the design of the rest of the campsite website, rather than adapting to the form of a ready-made plugin or external platform. Technically, the website is built on WordPress with a booking system we created, email notifications, WPML language versions and a Google map. More about the platform — in the article WordPress website development.

This description refers to the website handed over in 2017. The campsite’s current site is a different solution, so a link to it is not given here.

This kind of solution also suits a holiday home, guest house or other small tourist accommodation that wants to take bookings on its own website, learn about each booking by email straight away and offer information in several languages. A campsite website with its own booking system suits cases where bookings need to happen on your own site and the notifications need to match how the accommodation works. If the cabins are also offered through other channels, you need to plan how bookings will be coordinated so that the same cabin is not booked twice for the same dates.

If your accommodation also needs to work with booking platforms, the article a website for a hotel or guest house with Airbnb and Booking.com integration will be useful. About website development in general — on the page website development for businesses.

• Website development

This portfolio entry reflects the solution as delivered at handover. The current website may have changed.