You have a travel site and are looking for the perfect plugin to book trips, car rentals, hotels, or any other travel option.
Choosing the right travel plugin for your WordPress site can transform your travel blog or agency website from good to great. There are many options available in the WordPress directory, but what features to look for to meet your specific needs and enhance the user experience?
Good news: you’ve come to the right place! We’re so glad we can help you choose the best booking solution for your business.
- Think about what you need your booking plugin to do
- Determine your needs
- Consider what kind of surface user experience you want
- Decide how much help you want with marketing
- Selecting the quality plugin
- Look at booking plugins' support and security
- See how the booking plugin integrates with your site
- Consider your budget
- There are a lot of things to consider when choosing a travel booking plugin for your site
- Conclusion
Think about what you need your booking plugin to do
The first thing to do is to think about what you need your booking plugin to do.
If you want a fully-fledged booking plugin for your site, then you’ll need one that allows users to book travel with multiple providers in one place.
We offer the ability to search and compare destinations and accommodation options on their own.
If you only require a simple form or widget that allows people who are interested in using your accommodation or tour service to contact you directly.
there are plenty of plugins available that will achieve this without the hassle of managing multiple vendors or providing advanced functionality.
Such as deal management or room inventory management.
Determine your needs
The first step to choosing a travel booking plugin is figuring out your needs.
What are your goals?
What do you want to achieve?
And what do you need to improve on?
Once you’re clear about these things, it’ll be easier for you to find a plugin that fits those needs and suits your budget.
Here are some questions to ask yourself:
- Do I just want my site visitors to book through us, or am I looking for something more complex (such as an e-commerce solution)?
- How many people will use the booking system? How often will they be booking rooms on our website? Are there high-volume periods during which we expect higher demand?
- Does this solution allow me flexibility in pricing options (e.g., packages versus single rooms) or am I limited by what the plugin offers out of the box?
Consider what kind of surface user experience you want
- Consider what kind of surface user experience you want.
- Do you want to have a simple booking form, or do you want to have a full booking process?
- Do you want to have a booking widget on your site?
If yes, then there are different types of widgets. Check out some of the best travel booking plugins.
Decide how much help you want with marketing
When you choose a booking plugin, you’re making a decision that will affect your business for years to come. You need to know what type of help and support is offered before making the purchase.
There are three basic levels of plugins: those that do all the work for you, those that help with marketing but don’t include any booking features, and those with built-in booking features but no marketing assistance.
It’s important to figure out which one best fits your needs so that it can be effective in boosting your sales while still being affordable enough for your budget.
If you want help with marketing but not necessarily with building out any backend functionality or managing reservations on your website.
Then maybe even if you do want some backend functionality built into it, a more basic plugin would be better suited than something like Drip Booking (with its integrated CRM system) or eFusion (which integrates directly with WooCommerce).
Selecting the quality plugin
- The developer has responsive support via email, chat, or phone.
- The plugin has a good reputation within the WordPress community.
- You can find tutorials, videos, and other helpful resources online if you run into problems when using the plugin.
Next, consider how easy it is to use your chosen plugin.
Do you need to install a separate extension or app on your computer?
Will this add extra steps to booking reservations?
If so, does the benefit outweigh these extra steps?
For example, some plugins allow users to book directly from their smartphone apps (as opposed to having them log into their accounts).
Your visitors might prefer this feature over one that requires them to enter their credit card details manually not only to save time but also to protect them from phishing scams.
Look at booking plugins' support and security
You want to make sure that if something goes wrong with your site or booking system, there’s someone there to help.
Likewise, you should look at how secure the plugin is. Are you using HTTPS? If not, do they offer HTTPS at an extra cost or as part of their premium package? If so, how often are they updated with new features and bug fixes?
If you’re going to be using your payment gateway on a regular basis (and hopefully you are!), then this is another aspect of your website that should be examined carefully before choosing which type of travel booking software fits best with what kind of business model yours has chosen!
See how the booking plugin integrates with your site
When it comes to choosing a travel booking plugin, there are several important factors to consider. One of the most important is how well the plugin integrates with other aspects of your website.
If you’re using an established theme, for example, then you should check that the travel booking plugin has been designed for compatibility with this specific theme.
The same goes for any other plugins or tools that are already installed on your site: if they do not work well together, then it’s best not to install them at all!
Finally, don’t forget about payment gateways and email marketing platforms,these may also affect how well this type of booking plugin works on your site (or whether it will even work at all).
Consider your budget
- The cost of hiring a developer to customize and configure your booking widget. You may be able to do this yourself if you have developer experience
If not, it’s best for small businesses or non-technical people to hire a developer.
This can add anywhere from $250-$400 per hour depending on where you live and how complex your booking plugin is.
- Marketing costs associated with promoting your new travel booking software on social media and other channels (e.g., Facebook Ads)
One way around this is by using an affiliate program like Skyscanner or Booking.com that offers commission rates ranging from 5%-15% depending on how much traffic they send through their platform.
However, these programs come with restrictions on where they can be placed which may impact conversion rates negatively if poorly implemented off-site (e.g., via AdWords/Facebook Ads).
Also, remember that any promotional material related directly back to a specific website can trigger penalties based on Google’s Quality Score algorithm so don’t forget about SEO!
There are a lot of things to consider when choosing a travel booking plugin for your site
The first thing to consider when choosing a travel booking plugin is what you need the plugin to do. You will want to make sure that it has all of the features that are important for your business, including:
- The ability to accept payments, either directly or through a third party like Stripe or PayPal
- A way for customers to create and manage their own accounts on the site
- An easy-to-use interface, so your customers can complete their reservations as easily as possible
Conclusion
Luckily, there are a lot of great options out there, and all you have to do is find the one that’s right for you. This might take some research on your part, but the results are worth it! We hope this article has helped clarify some of those options and given you some guidance as you continue your search.