How To Create Travel Site Marketplace Using Dokan

Editorial Team May 21, 2019 5 min read

Looking for a solution to build a travel site marketplace on WordPress? While in the past you might have needed a development team to get your travel site marketplace off the ground, now you can create your own marketplace using simple, pre-made extensions.

In this article, you’re going to learn how you can use WordPress plugin called Dokan to create a travel site marketplace.

Elements to Include to Travel Site Marketplace

Before you start building your travel site marketplace, you need to consider the essential elements of your business. To start with, you should be prepared to include all the marketing elements that can help you create your brand presence online. You’ll want to include links to your social network profiles, customer testimonials, and an introductory blurb about your marketplace.

You’ll also want to identify which features to include to make your marketplace helpful and convenient for your users such as maps and imagery on your site to help your customers make reservations, find details about your travel getaways and get your contact information. If you want to accept online payments, you’ll also need to research about payment gateways.

Tell Your Story

Engage your potential customers by connecting them to your success journey. Narrating your story is the key element of any online marketing campaign. Starting from “how your business came into existence” to “the success and popularity you gained,” gives your potential customers a way to build an emotional connection with your business. Long-standing businesses have the advantage of going back generations while highlighting company history and milestones. Young business startups can instead describe the story of how the business was born and how it is going now.

Visual content is a must element of modern marketing. Visual storytelling options can leave a more memorable impact on your potential customers. There are many timeline plugins available for WordPress which can help with your storytelling.

Responsive and Detailed Getaways

In addition to telling your story effectively, for business growth, it is important to relay and sell positive, quality travel experiences to your potential customers. Should your travel WordPress site marketplace need to showcase details of holiday packages and destination details, one optimal way to do so is again by implementing a visual approach.

To allow your customers orientation and insight into the nearby areas, you can add custom Google Maps and location pins.

Prerequisites Plugins To Create Your Travel Site Marketplace

Before setting up your marketplace you require plugin. Here is prerequisite plugins:

WooCommerce
Dokan
WooCommerce Bookings plugin
Dokan bookings module

Make Your Travel Marketplace Work Using Dokan

Here is a common scenario of how your travel marketplace may work with all three types of user roles in case of Air Ticket & Hotel booking.

Admin adding a bookable product in Dokan Travel Site

As an admin, you may want to add a bookable product in your WordPress using Dokan. The below video shows exactly how that is done using Dokan & WooCommerce. After enabling all the required plugin, you have to go to the Products tab and add tags and categories of products including product description & attributes. The bookable product, for instance is Air Tickets.

Since it is a bookable product, therefore while adding this product, you have to tag select it as a bookable product. There are a few options available to add a bookable product. Like in the general settings, you have to set the duration of booking. Choose the calendar visible option and checkbox option for booking confirmation.

Not only the booking confirmation, you also set the option to choose whether you will allow any customer to cancel a booking or not. Set other essential option includes the Attributes, Advanced, Availability, Number of Persons and Costs settings of this bookable product. Watch the video closely to find out how you should use those option to make the product bookable for others.

Bookable Product Settings Admin to Travel Site marketplace

Vendor adding a bookable product in Dokan Travel Site

Now comes to the front-end of Dokan, how does a vendor can add a bookable product? Well, the process is very easy and simple. You can simply go to the vendor dashboard after logging in and similarly add a bookable product like the admin did. In this case, a new booking product for a hotel room can be added by the vendor. Just similar how an admin adds his bookable product, vendors can also add the title of the product, sets categories and tags.

In the same way, a vendor have to set the other options available under the Add Bookable Product tab. The options are also similar to adding a bookable product in the admin dashboard. The only difference is, you have to do all these in the front-end of your online store.

After setting up the cost, availability, booking duration, description along with all the other essential required options, the vendor have to save this bookable product for the customer to book it from their website. Watch the video below to find out how the step by step process of adding a bookable product works out for the vendor.

Bookable product availability settings overview

Vendor Dashboard Settings to Travel Site marketplace

Customer buying a bookable product in Dokan Travel Site

In Dokan, booking a bookable product for a customer is much more easier than adding a product like admin & vendor. As a customer, they are not required to add any attributes or any other options like adding products. They just simply have to go to Dokan travel site and find their desired product which they want to book.

In this case, the below video shows how a customer books a Hotel Room and Air Tickets from the Dokan website. After finding the product, customer simply needs to click on it to select the date they want to book their desired hotel room and air tickets for.

In case of air tickets, you can book more than one tickets if multiple people are traveling. Simply put the number of persons and the cost of tickets will automatically be adjusted according to the number of people traveling. After that, click on Book Now and the products will be added to your cart. Once all your bookable products are booked, click on the view cart tab to proceed to the payment section filling up all your required details.

Watch the video below to see the step by step guide of how a customer will be able to book a bookable product for traveling from your site.

If you are still facing difficulties using this premium Dokan booking modules to create your bookable travel site marketplace then you may check out this detailed documentation on Dokan Booking.

Here is a preview of customer booking a hotel room and carting the product.

Customer Booking Hotel Room in Travel Site marketplace

Final Words

The travel industry is one of the fastest growing business with increasing connectivity to technology. If your travel business is not online, you may be missing many potential customers every day. With the above guide, you can easily create your travel WordPress site and reach more of your target market.

So, get started with DOKAN to get the best storefront & marketplace experience today. Dokan is a multi-vendor marketplace WordPress plugin that will effectively fulfill all your marketplace needs.

If you are thinking to use DOKAN for your Travel Site marketplace then you may also try out its Free DEMO to get an overall idea about this plugin before investing anything behind it.