How to Create a Travel Booking Website with WordPress?

Looking to digitalize your travel and tour business? Or want to build a tour and travel booking website? Don’t worry as you are at the right place. This article will teach you how to create a travel booking website with WordPress.

Creating a website is a complicated task for first-time builders. But with the help of WordPress, along with its themes and plugins, you can create a fully functioning, beautiful, and customizable website within an hour. 

You do not need to know coding or complicated methods for it. Simply follow the steps in this article, and you will have your website ready at the end. Make sure you follow each step carefully.

What Does a Travel Booking Website Needs?

Although the travel booking websites you can find on the internet have their own differences, there are also some similarities between them. So, before you start building your travel booking website, understand what components you have to add, what functionalities are expected by the user and the best practices in the industry.

Discoverability

Discoverability simply means being able to be discovered. Whenever a traveller wants to book a travel, they need to find your website without any effort. This means your website should be SEO-optimized and can appear in the search engines such as Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo for the services you are offering.

Make sure to do SEO activities during site creation. These include site design, site structure and image optimization. You can further improve the site’s discoverability after the website development.

A discoverable website also gets high traffic and thus increases the chance of high conversion and sales.

A Good User Experience

User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) improves visitor’s overall website experience. The ability to navigate through the website should transcend all languages and communication barriers. For this, the website needs to be translated to every local languages considering not every website visitor knows english.

To have a good user interface and user experience, you must incorporate a human-centered design into your website.

Competitive Or Unique Travel Packages

All your travel packages should be competitive in pricing or have uniqueness inside the packages. You need to give a reason for your customers to choose you instead of your competitors.

If you are offering the same thing as your competitors, you need to be price competitive with them to attract customers. Or, if you do not want to do that, you need to be able to offer more value than your competitors.

Accessible Payment Methods

Payment methods are another hurdle you need to address. If you offer your services to a large population, you also need to include how they can pay for your services. You would not want a customer to return from your booking page just because they didn’t find a favorable payment method.

Travel Tips

Information is key. The more information you provide about a certain destination, the more chances that people would want to go there. So, always include travel tips on all your destination. Travel tips can include location maps, what travellers can expect, interesting facts about the place, backpacking tips, etc.

Social Proof

Social proof is a great way to convince people. If the visitors on your website will see other fellow travelers doing the travel or someone recommending the tour, it will prompt the visitor to make a purchase. Reviews and ratings are another social proof that you can make use of. Include the reviews and ratings in every travel package you have.

Steps To Create a Good Travel Booking Website With WordPress

Creating a good travel booking website with WordPress is easy and fast. You just need to install the required plugin and theme on your WordPress and set them up with your business information. That is all. You will have a fully functioning travel website within an hour.

So, let’s see the main steps we need to follow to create your website.

1. Get domain and hosting.
2. Install WordPress.
3. Install WP Travel Engine Plugin.
4. Install Travel Booking Theme.
5. Set up and customize.
6. Test run the website.

After completing these six steps, you will have your website ready.

Let’s start with the domain and hosting.

1. Get Domain And Hosting

Domain and hosting are the primary part of any website. You need to purchase your domain and hosting from a reputed and well-known hosting company as they tend to have good support and competitive pricing.

Also, your hosting choice determines how fast or slow your website loads. The hosting server is where you will store your website for users on the internet to find it. It hosts all your files, images, and other data. Simply put, it is a computer from where your website will run.

But how will your users find your Website?

This is where the domain comes in. It is an address that will let users connect to your website.

The domain is the name you will choose for the website, also known as the web address. It will direct users to your website hosted inside the hosting server whenever they type your domain name.

First, you need to finalize the domain name for your website. Then, you can simply use your company’s name and an extension of your choice, such as .com, .org, .in, .net, .co, etc. The most commonly used domain extension is .com, which will be easy for you in terms of SEO afterwards. So, first, select the domain name and its extension.

So, how can you get it done?

Many different companies provide you with domain names and hosting servers. However, Bluehost is one of the top reliable companies with 24/7 support. You can simply visit the BlueHost website and purchase one of their WordPress hosting plans. Also, BlueHost is available in several countries. So, try to purchase the hosting near your location or the location of your service area. The nearer the hosting server from the service area, the lesser time it takes to load the website, which is good for SEO and also for the user’s experience.

The WordPress hosting by BlueHost also has a free domain for a year. So, follow the steps below to get your hosting and domain for your travel website.

Step 1: Visit the BlueHost website and click on Get Started.

Step 2: Scroll down and select the BASIC plan. You can start with the basic plan and upgrade later whenever needed.

Step 3: Create a domain name. Input the name you finalized earlier with the choice of extension. You should also make sure the domain is available. If the domain is not available, you can enter another domain name. After you find the available domain name of your choice, click Next.

Step 4: Now, on the next screen, you need to finalize the package you want to purchase. You can select a yearly, 2-year, or 3-year plan. The longer timeframe you will choose, the cheaper the price will be. So, choose accordingly.

Step 5: Once you choose the package, you must provide the account information and other details. Fill in the information carefully and set up your account. After you are done, submit the information and make the payment.

You are now done purchasing the domain and hosting and can proceed to the next step to install WordPress. 

Note: Bluehost will email all the information about your account, hosting, and domain in your email.

2. Install WordPress 

Once you purchase the hosting and domain, you can now proceed to install WordPress on that hosting server.

Step 1: Log into your Bluehost account.

Step 2: Click on the Advanced section and tap on WordPress at the Softaculous Apps Installer.

Step 3: It will open a page from where you can install WordPress. Tap on install now.

Step 4: You will now see a setup screen on this page. The main thing you have to take care of is the ‘Installation URL’, ‘Site Settings’ and the ‘Admin Account’ details. Enter the information carefully.

Installation URL: You can choose the domain you purchased earlier on the dropdown menu.

Site Settings: Enter the Site Name and Site Description.

Admin Account: Input your desired Admin Username and Password along with your organizational or personal email for Admin Email.

Step 5: After you are done with the details, Scroll down and click the install button, and It will install WordPress on your hosting server. You can also add the email address to send the installation details.

Now we need to go to the actual website’s admin panel and set it up. So, open another tab and type the domain name of your website.

When you open the domain, you will see a welcome screen with an empty website. This is what a WordPress website looked like before it was designed.

Now add ‘/wp-admin/’ at the end of the domain name and open the admin panel. 

It should look like, “www.yoursite.com/wp-admin” where ‘yoursite’ is your website’s domain name.

The wp-admin page is where your admin dashboard is located. You need to visit this page every time you want to make some changes to your website in the future.

Step 6: You can now use the admin login details on this page to log into your WordPress admin panel.

Step 7: Once you are on the Admin panel, you can now click on the settings option and set up your WordPress from here. Provide as much information as you can.

The most important setting in here is the permalink structure. Click on Settings>Permalinks> Select the permalink structure as ‘Post Name’ and save the settings. This will change your website URL to a page or post name rather than a random structure. Having a clear page or post name is important for SEO as the search engines can tell what the webpage is about.

After you finish the setting, you must install the plugins and theme you need to create a travel booking website with WordPress.

3. Install WP Travel Engine Plugin

WP Travel Engine is a feature-rich plugin specially developed to meet the demand of tour and travel agencies and companies. If you want the full functionality of this plugin enabled on your website, you can choose to buy the add-on features.

This plugin comes with in-built support for various payment methods such as PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.net, etc. In addition, you can create tour packages, itineraries, trip information, price, duration, and some facts and information about the destination.

WP Travel Engine is the best plugin on the market right now for tour and travel websites. Since it is designed for tours and travel agencies, it has the necessary feature and customer support. So, we recommend you this plugin for minimum problems and maximum utility

Key Features Of WP Travel Engine Plugin

• Unlimited tour packages
• Itineraries creation
• Coupons
• Trip fixed starting dates
• Google map integration
• Weather forecast widgets
• SEO friendliness
• Advanced search feature
• Compatibility with many WordPress themes
• Multiple payment gateways
• Zapier integration

More Add-ons For WP Travel Engine

Add-ons are added piece of programs to the plugin that will extend the existing feature and provides the ability to add more function to the website.

• Trip Fixed Starting Date
• Advanced Itinerary Builder
• Currency Converter
• Trip Weather Forecast
• Group Discount
• Trip Reviews
• Social Proof
• Zapier

Once you understand the WP Travel Engine plugin and its functionalities, you can now go on and start installing the plugin on WordPress.

Installing WP Travel Engine

So, let’s go and install this plugin on your WordPress site.

Step 1: Click on ‘Plugins’ and ‘Add New’. It will open a plugins page where you can find almost all the plugins available on WordPress.

Step 2: Type ‘WP Travel Engine’ on the search box and hit ‘Enter’. You will see the WP Travel Engine as the first result of your search.

Step 3: Click ‘Install’ and wait for a minute. After the plugin is installed, click ‘Activate’, and the plugin will activate. It will now open a setup page automatically.

Step 4: Set up your plugin for Currency, Email, Pages, and Payment.

Step 5: After the setup, the plugin is ready to use.

As stated earlier, upgrading this plugin and purchasing the add-ons is better because you will get more functionality with add-ons. Or you can wait until the website is ready and then purchase the add-ons to explore more use cases.

4. Install Travel Booking Theme

Travel Booking is a beautiful theme that is created for tour and travel websites. This theme is one of the most compatible themes with the WP Travel Engine plugin and also has lots of features under the roof.

This theme is beautifully designed with modern transitions and effects on its UI. It is also well optimized to work speedily and give the best experience to the users. 

As per our experience, the best theme you can use with WP Travel Engine is the ‘Travel Booking Theme.’ You can either purchase the PRO version of this theme right away or can first build the website and upgrade it to PRO. 

The ‘Travel Booking Theme PRO’ is much more versatile and provides full support for all the add-on modules of the WP Travel Engine Plugin.

Key Features Of Travel Booking Theme

• Speed optimized
• Modern CSS effects and animations
• Translation ready
• SEO friendly
• Mobile optimized
• Add trips
• Add destinations
• Trip types
• Feature travel activities
• Highlight your specialities
• Allow visitors to book the trips
• Stunning designs

Now that you know the features and specialities of the Travel Booking Theme, we can now start installing it on the WordPress site.

Installing Travel Booking Theme

So, let’s install the Travel Booking Theme.

Step 1: Click on ‘Appearance’ and tap on ‘Themes’. This will open the theme page, where you will find almost all the WordPress themes. For example, search for ‘Travel Booking,’ and the first result will be the Travel Booking Theme we want to install.

Step 2: Click on ‘Install’ and activate the theme once it gets installed. 

Step 3: After the theme is active, it will redirect you to the setup page, asking you to install two more plugins, in addition to the already installed WP Travel Engine. The two plugins are ‘Contact Form 7’ and ‘Travel Booking Toolkit’. Click ‘Install’ and install both of the plugins.

After installing the theme and the needed plugins, you are done with the installation process. You can now start customizing the website according to your choice.

You may also watch the video below demonstrating How to Create a Travel & Tour Website using Travel Booking Theme.

5. Set Up And Customize

The website is now ready. But most of the contents and pictures of the websites are still imported from the demo and are not original. So now you need to customize the website according to your company’s information and make it ready for visitors.

As stated in the first section of this article, you need to take care of the site structure and the information you present on the pages. For example, personalize the contents of the web pages, add travel packages, create itineraries, coupons, etc. 

For web page customization and personalization, click Appearence>Customize, where you can customize the theme and add your content on the web pages.

On the other hand, you can click on the ‘WP Travel Engine’ on the left bar and add coupons, see your bookings, etc.

On the same left bar, you will see the ‘Trips’ option, where you can add trips, destinations, prices, etc.

6. Test Run The Website

Once you are done adding information and customizing, you can open the website on the front end and check all the buttons, functions, and pages. Finally, you can test-run the website with the help of your friends and family to make sure everything is working fine.

You can also place demo bookings to check if the booking system is working properly or not. If something is not working, you can fix it from the admin panel or by visiting the various resources of WP Travel Engine, where you can find videos and documentation to help you out.

But if you have followed the steps given in this article accurately, there should not be any errors or problems. And you would have built a fully functioning travel website with WordPress for your travel business.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Conclusion

That’s it. Congratulations, you now know how to create a travel booking website with WordPress.

Even though the main website is done, you still need to customize the site with your own images, contents and other design elements. Do not forget to apply SEO best practices in the contents of your travel booking site.

You will always be customizing, changing, and upgrading your website because the information, prices, and offers will change over time, along with the versions of the theme and plugins you used. So, what type of travel website you are going to create? And what travel niche you will work on? Do let us know in the comments.