What is a WordPress booking system?

A WordPress booking system, or WordPress booking engine, is a reservation calendar system primarily on the hotel’s website to help guests make direct bookings with ease. It is also referred to as a hotel booking plugin or booking engine plugin because hoteliers often start building their website on WordPress, where they usually need to install extra reservation system plugins.

Hotel booking system for WordPress

You can have a hotel booking system for WordPress by simply adding a complete reservation functionality on your hotel website with Little Hotelier. Our hotel booking engine can seamlessly integrate with your WordPress website.

All you have to do is sign up to Little Hotelier for free, fill it with your property’s information, install the WordPress plugin, and you’re ready to accept bookings online, allowing customers to self-serve.

Watch our demo video to see how an all-in-one reservation system like Little Hotelier can help you start getting more direct online bookings today.

WordPress booking engine features for hotel websites

WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems (CMS) available, because it’s free and reliable. To recap, a content management system is a software system that allows you to manage all of your website content easily, without any technical skills. ‘Content’ includes all the elements of a website – pages, images, text, and videos.

In Wikipedia’s words, it’s ‘designed to allow users with little knowledge of web programming languages to create and manage web content with relative ease’ If you’re currently running your small hotel website on WordPress, here are the features you should look for when selecting a hotel booking engine:

1. Easy to integrate

If your hotel booking system that was built for WordPress isn’t easy to implement, that’s a red flag!

Make sure that:

  • You can customize it to match your branding.
  • It works with all WordPress hotel website themes.
  • All of the data is getting saved by the vendor, and is easily accessible.

Consistency in look and feel is key – otherwise your guests might feel uncomfortable making a booking due to a lack of confidence in the legitimacy of your booking page.

2. Mobile friendly

Mobile-friendliness is non-negotiable for your small hotel website. In recent years, mobile devices drove 61% of visits to U.S. websites, and mobile bookings represented over 40% of total bookings.

Consider how your booking engine will look on mobile, tablet, and desktops. In all scenarios, you should aim for user-friendly navigation – for example, big buttons and a lot of white space to accommodate differently sized screens.

Also, speed up your website’s loading time so that it doesn’t take longer than 3 seconds to load any page – including your booking engine page.

If you’re curious, Google has provided a mobile-friendly website check, where you can simply enter your website to see how well you score. Check your website’s mobile friendliness.

Remember, the key is to make it as simple as possible for your potential guests to learn about your property and make a reservation with you, no matter what device they are using to access your website.

3. Simple payment processing

Your WordPress booking engine needs to make it as simple as possible for guests to pay for a reservation.

Make sure that the payment processing part of it:

  • Is 100% secure and PCI compliant
  • Minimizes data entry.
  • Allows for currency conversion.
  • Triggers instant booking confirmation (an automated email)

How do I set up a WordPress hotel booking system?

Setting up a hotel booking engine in WordPress can be time-consuming and overwhelming, especially when hoteliers or owner-operators already have a lot on their plate.

With Little Hotelier, not only can you easily add a hotel booking system to your WordPress website, but you can also effortlessly build a beautiful hotel or bed and breakfast website with built-in direct booking engine technology that’s proven to convert guests far and wide.

Turn browsers into guests today—see for yourself!


By Dean Elphick

Dean is the Senior Content Marketing Specialist of Little Hotelier, the all-in-one software solution purpose-built to make the lives of small accommodation providers easier. Dean has made writing and creating content his passion for the entirety of his professional life, which includes more than six years at Little Hotelier. Through content, Dean aims to provide education, inspiration, assistance, and, ultimately, value for small accommodation businesses looking to improve the way they run their operations (and live their life).