Project Description
A fast, mobile-friendly booking website for a self-catering holiday rental in Sandbaai, Hermanus. Guests check live availability and request a booking, and the owner edits everything from a
The brief was a professional site for a small holiday rental that doesn’t depend on paid platforms or monthly fees. I built a lightweight custom site that runs on ordinary shared hosting with no database.
The site connects to the owner’s Airbnb and Booking.com calendars, so nights booked on those platforms appear as unavailable on the website. This helps prevent double bookings. Guests pick their dates on a two-month calendar, choose their number of guests and send a request, and the owner replies with the price and payment details. The site also supports more than one rental unit, each with its own calendar, rates and photos.
Trust is built into the design. There are rating badges from Airbnb, a rating breakdown by category, selected guest reviews, a photo gallery with a full-screen viewer, and a Google map showing the location.
The owner manages the site from a password-protected admin area. There she can change the home text, photos, rates, facilities, reviews, logo and colours, block dates by hand, and read booking requests. The branding system also lets me reuse the same build for other clients quickly.
Key features (use as bullets)
- Booking calendar with live availability from Airbnb and Booking.com
- Booking request form with email delivery and spam protection
- Multi-unit support with a separate calendar for each unit
- Photo gallery with a lightbox viewer, and guest reviews and rating badges
- Google map and WhatsApp chat button
- Owner admin area for text, photos, rates, branding and blocked dates
- Responsive design that works on phones, tablets and desktops
- Fast, with no database and no monthly platform fees
Tech / role line
Plain PHP, JavaScript, HTML and CSS, with iCal calendar sync and SMTP email. Design
