Website development for serviced accommodation
Every serviced accommodation operator knows the maths that matters: a booking through Airbnb or Booking.com costs fifteen to eighteen percent of the booking value, a direct booking costs almost nothing. Yet most operators treat their own website as an afterthought (a holding page with a contact form) while Airbnb and Booking.com do the real work. The site described here is built to move repeat guests, corporate bookers and longer stays onto your own website, where you keep more of the money.
The features below come from how serviced accommodation runs day to day. Availability stays in sync across every site you list on, so nobody double-books. Apartment pages answer the questions guests ask before booking. A corporate enquiry form captures company, dates and budget in one go. And guests find you on Google, not only on booking sites.
- From £395
- Typically 3–4 weeks
- Fixed quote before work starts
What customers want
This is what a serviced accommodation website needs to do.
People visit a serviced apartment operator website to get something done. If your site makes that quick, you get the enquiry. These are the tasks every page is designed around.
- 01“Check real availability for my dates before I waste time enquiring”
- 02“See exactly what the apartment looks like and what is included”
- 03“Book a longer stay or corporate let and get a proper rate for it”
- 04“Trust that booking direct is safe, with clear terms and real contact details”
- 05“Find the property's location, parking and check-in process before arrival”
- 06“Rebook a place I stayed in before without going through an OTA again”
Features
Every feature is chosen for how serviced accommodation win work.
Direct booking
Guests pick dates, see the nightly rate and request or pay for their stay, all on your website. It connects to the booking software you already use, so nothing changes day to day except the commission you pay.
Availability calendar sync
Live availability for each apartment, pulled from Guesty, Hostaway, Uplisting, Smoobu or whichever channel manager you use. Guests see what is free before they enquire, and double-bookings stop being a Sunday-night emergency.
Unit pages that sell the stay
A page for each apartment that Google can find: photos, beds, workspace, parking, check-in, house rules and weekly or monthly rates. These pages show up for '[area] serviced apartment' searches and win guests the booking sites cannot keep.
Corporate and long-stay enquiry
A form that captures company, dates, number of guests, budget and billing needs: everything a relocation agent or project manager needs to tell you in one go. Corporate stays of thirty nights plus are where direct booking pays for the whole site.
Location and area guides
Pages covering each property's patch: transport links, hospitals, business parks, universities and event venues nearby. Contractors, visiting families and relocating staff search by destination, and these pages are how they find you without a booking site taking its cut.
Repeat guest bookings
After their stay, guests get a returning-guest discount code, so someone who first found you on Airbnb books direct next time. The first booking pays commission; every booking after that should not.
Your competition
Why serviced accommodation come to WebCheap
instead of a website builder.
What serviced apartment operator websites look like today
Most operators' direct presence is a Linktree, a Facebook page or a template site last updated when they got their first unit. The few who invest end up with slow WordPress themes carrying forty plugins and a booking button that opens an OTA anyway. Meanwhile the booking sites spend millions making their listings persuasive. That leaves a clear opening: a fast site with live availability, all-in prices and repeat-guest discounts gives an operator with five to fifty apartments a way to take direct bookings that grows every year.
How customers find you on Google
Guests search by destination and need: 'serviced apartment [city]', 'contractor accommodation [town]', 'short stay near [hospital]'. Unit pages and area guides map directly onto those queries, and they are terms booking sites cannot dominate for your own apartments. A Google Business Profile for each property picks up 'near me' searches, and reviews collected on Google (not just inside Airbnb) build an asset you own. It is one of the few industries where a small operator can outrank the big platforms for people ready to book.
Rules and regulations we cover
Direct booking pages carry clear cancellation terms, damage deposit terms and house rules before payment. Where local short-let licensing or planning rules apply, the area content states the property's status honestly. Prices include cleaning and any fees up front: under the DMCC Act, adding fees later is a legal risk and puts guests off.
Fits your setup
Your new site works with the tools serviced accommodation already use.
- Guesty, Hostaway, Uplisting, Smoobu and other channel managers
- iCal availability feeds from Airbnb and Booking.com
- Stripe or your existing payment provider for direct bookings
- Lodgify, Book Direct or native booking engines
- Google Business Profile per property
- WhatsApp or SMS for guest communication
Written in your trade’s language
- OTA
- Online travel agent such as Airbnb or Booking.com. They introduce guests; they should not own them.
- direct booking
- A booking made on your own website. It saves the fifteen to eighteen percent commission.
- channel manager
- Software syncing availability across every platform. The site reads from it.
- night rate
- The per-night price, adjusted by season and length of stay.
Live demo
Try a working serviced apartment operator website before you spend anything.
The Foundry Suites is a working serviced apartment operator website for a made-up business, with the features above. Two minutes clicking through it shows you more than a forty-minute sales call.
It is an example of our quality, not a template. Your site is designed from scratch around your own brand, tone and style.
Questions
Here are answers to what serviced accommodation ask before starting.
No. The site reads availability from your channel manager or iCal feeds and passes bookings to your existing booking software or enquiry inbox. Guesty, Hostaway, Uplisting and Smoobu all stay exactly where they are. Your website simply adds a way to book direct.
Two options. The simple option is a booking request that you confirm and take payment as you do now. The fuller option connects Stripe so guests pay at booking. Both are quoted up front; most operators start with requests and add payments later.
Yes, through calendar links from Airbnb or your channel manager, refreshed regularly. If you already use a channel manager, sync is instant from its data. If you only use calendar links, availability updates every few minutes: close enough that double-bookings effectively disappear.
Length-of-stay pricing is built into the unit pages and the booking flow, so a twenty-eight-night contractor stay prices itself correctly without a phone call. Corporate and long-stay enquiries capture budget and billing details separately.
Price and relationship. A direct rate that beats the OTA by a few percent, a returning-guest code after stay one, and a site that answers every pre-booking question. You will not win every guest, and you do not need to: shifting a third of repeat stays direct changes the economics of the whole portfolio.
No. Two units earning back fifteen percent on even a modest share of bookings covers the build cost within a season or two. The site is the same shape at two units as at twenty; adding units later is a data change, not a rebuild.
We also build websites for these related trades.
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