Urban Pumpkin

The problem

Short-stay guests in this market book over WhatsApp, so a standard booking form alone was losing enquiries.

What I did

• Website for a serviced-apartment and short-stay accommodation brand|Warm, editorial identity with a multi-location search and booking widget|WhatsApp-based booking flow alongside standard search|Fully responsive with a matching mobile layout

The brief

Vacation homes and travel experiences. Two businesses in one: property rental and curated experiences, each with a different booking pattern.

Why the two need separating

A property booking is planned weeks ahead, for specific dates, with a party size and a budget. An experience is often booked days ahead or on arrival, sometimes by someone already staying nearby.

Presenting them in one list serves neither. The site separates them at the top level while cross-linking properly: a property page shows experiences nearby, an experience page shows where to stay. That is where the revenue overlap actually is.

The amenities problem

Amenities are how guests filter and how bookings are lost. Someone who needs parking, or a cot, or reliable internet for work, will not book without confirming it, and a property that buries that information in a paragraph forces a message the guest may not bother sending.

Amenities are structured data, filterable, and shown as a clear list on every property. That costs nothing to build properly and prevents a category of lost booking.

Photography

The whole decision. Every room, in daylight, wide enough to show the actual space. Vacation rental photography is routinely misleading through selective framing, and guests have learned to distrust it; a set that shows the whole property including its limitations builds more confidence than one that hides them.

Pricing and availability

Rates vary by season and stay length. Pricing is structured with the variables explained, and availability is shown rather than discovered after enquiring. A guest who fills in a form and is told the dates are unavailable has been wasted, and will book elsewhere.

The build

WordPress with properties and experiences as connected types, each carrying location, capacity, amenities and seasonal pricing. Location connects the two, which is what makes the cross-linking automatic rather than manual.

Design

Warm and image-led, with the layout stepping back so photographs carry the pages. Type is quiet, which on a site where the product is entirely visual is the correct choice.

Performance

Travel research is mobile, frequently on holiday connections. Galleries load progressively, images are sized for display, and the property page’s first image is preloaded so the page has something to show immediately.

What the client can manage

Properties, experiences, amenities, pricing and availability.

The stack

• WordPress Development