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If you run a hotel, bed and breakfast, or vacation rental, you’ll know that it looks a lot more glamorous than it really is. Aside from the demanding day-to-day tasks and the non-existent weekends, you also have to constantly be on top of the business side of things. The most time-consuming of these tasks? Securing and managing reservations.
It’s a lot of balls to juggle, and that’s why Wix created Wix Hotels. As an app that can be enabled for any Wix site, Wix Hotels allows you to add a reservation system directly to your hotel or B&B’s website, and manage bookings in an easy (and affordable) way.
Booking rooms through a site built with Wix Hotels
But how flexible is Wix Hotels, and what are its limitations? And more importantly, is it right for you? Find out by reading our detailed Wix Hotels guide.
Wix Hotels Review: How does it work?
If you’re familiar with Wix (or heard of it, at least), you’ll know it’s a website builder that helps you build professional-looking websites, with the help of its easy-to-use visual editor. This editor is flexible enough to let you add and edit elements, such as text, images, and buttons, pretty much however you like.
The beauty of Wix – literally – is in its wide range of modern website templates. These include a good selection of templates specifically designed for hotel, B&B and holiday rental owners. They’re really designed to show off how gorgeous and inviting your accommodation is to potential guests (and they’re also mobile-friendly).
A selection of Wix’s hotel and B&B templates
Wix Hotels is a separate app that can be added to your Wix site (or, if you’ve chosen one of Wix’s accommodation-specific templates, it may already come included). It lets you add rooms and rates, and allows guests to book accommodation through a built-in calendar – the same as you’d see on any booking site.
You can also accept payments online through PayPal or Stripe (or even offline if you’d prefer). Wix won’t charge any commission on bookings, either, which sets it apart from a lot of other online booking services, who often charge astonishing fees for this.
So far, so good, right? Well, almost. There’s just a few things to keep in mind in terms of what it can and can’t do.
What does Wix Hotels let me do?
For a tool that’s designed to be simple and easy to use, there’s actually quite a lot of things that Wix Hotels can accommodate (sorry, couldn’t resist!). Here’s a quick rundown:
Allow guests to book individual rooms: Wix lets you add details of different rooms available for booking. For each room type you can also specify how many rooms are available, maximum number of guests (adults and children), bed types, and amenities. It’s also possible to charge per room or per guest, and to add different rates for weekdays, weekends, weeks or months.
Some of the options for editing room details in Wix Hotels
Add seasonal rates: For high-demand periods, you can set different per-room rates, as well as specifying minimum stays.
Integrate with other booking sites and calendars: Using Wix’s Channel Manager, you can link your Wix site up to other booking systems (such as Expedia and Booking.com). This means that reservations through any of these sites will show up in your Wix Hotels calendar (and vice-versa), helping you avoid double-booking. You can also sync your calendar with other tools that use iCal (such as Airbnb). Channel Manager works through HotelRunner, and is available at an extra cost – more information in our pricing section below.
The backend view of the Reservation Calendar in Wix Hotels
Display your booking options in multiple languages: If you’re looking to attract international guests to your accommodation, Wix lets you display room information in up to 14 different languages. Main drawback? Translations are provided through Google Translate, which we all know can be a little hit-and-miss (although there’s an option to manually add your own translations).
Attract new guests via TripAdvisor: Wix Hotels has integrations with several TripAdvisor services, including Instant Booking, TripConnect and Review Express. Instant Booking (which allows bookings through TripAdvisor) is only available in certain locations, though.
Run Google ad campaigns: Through Wix Hotels, you can manage and run your own Google ad campaigns, allowing your hotel to be listed in Google search and Google Maps results. Guests can also book directly from these listings.
Send booking confirmations: Once guests have made a booking, Wix Hotels will send automated confirmation emails on your behalf. Booking details will automatically be included. It’s also possible to customize some of the email text, although you can’t add a personalized salutation (e.g. ‘Hi NAME’). (To learn more about how emails can be used for managing reservations and getting more bookings, check out our complete guide on email marketing for hotels.)
Optimize your site for search: Like with any other Wix website, you’re given plenty of options to make your site SEO-friendly and get found by potential guests online. As templates are also mobile-responsive, guests will be able to view and book from mobile devices too.
How a Wix Hotels site displays on mobile
Add extra features to your site: Thanks to Wix’s extensive App Market, you can add useful extras like live chat and guest reviews to your website.
It’s a pretty impressive feature set, for a tool that costs just a few additional dollars per month (more on that below). But, there are a few limitations that make it less than ideal for some hotel owners.
What can’t you do with Wix Hotels?
Allow guests to book individual beds: If you run a hostel or rent out shared accommodation, you might find Wix Hotels a little restrictive. It will only let you list rooms, not individual beds (e.g. in a dorm room). There is a workaround, although it requires you to be super-clear in your description, and may get a little complicated to manage.
Let guests book multiple rooms in one reservation: This could be frustrating for users making corporate or family bookings, where multiple rooms are required. Reservations (and payments) can only be made on a per-room basis, so it’s not ideal if your accommodation frequently attracts these kinds of bookings.
Keep the user on your website when they’re making the booking: Once guests view your room listings and hit the ‘Book Now’ button, they’re actually redirected to the wixhotels.com website (although we have to say, the transition is pretty seamless). For the keen-eyed user, this may be a little confusing.
Add extra services and charges on a per-room basis: Although you can allow guests to purchase extra services (such as massages, dry cleaning, parking etc), these need to be enabled for all room types available – you can’t make them available for certain rooms only. What’s more, services can only be charged on a per-room or per-person basis, meaning you can’t charge per day (e.g. for Wi-Fi access).
Is Wix Hotels right for my business?
As we’ve detailed above, Wix Hotels provides all the absolute essentials for running a booking service through your website. But there are a few small details that mean it’s not for everyone.
Overall, we’d recommend it to:
- Owners of boutique hotels, bed and breakfasts, and vacation rentals: If your accommodation is on the smaller side and doesn’t have a large number of rooms, it’s possible to manage your site and bookings entirely through Wix Hotels.
- Hotel owners who want a simple way to add a booking system to their website: Having an online reservation system on your website adds that extra level of professionalism to your hotel’s image, and increases your chances of securing those all-important bookings. Wix Hotels offers that, in a way that requires very little cost or maintenance.
We wouldn’t recommend it to:
- Hostel owners, or those renting out individual beds in a shared rooms: As it is, Wix Hotels just isn’t built for that (although this could be added as a feature in the future)
- Hotels who frequently host larger groups: The Wix Hotels booking system isn’t flexible enough to accommodate multiple rooms in a single reservation, so these kinds of bookings would need to be handled manually – not ideal if you’re looking to reduce time spent managing reservations!
Is Wix Hotels free?
Wix Hotels is included for free in all Wix Business plans. Here’s a summary of each plan and what’s included:
| Plan | Core | Business |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $22 / month | $27 / month |
| Bandwidth | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Storage | 10GB | 20GB |
| Wix ads displayed | No | No |
| Accept online payments | Yes | Yes |
| Set seasonal pricing + extra charges | Yes | Yes |
| Emails with Wix ShoutOut | 5 campaigns / month | 20 campaigns / month |
| Channel Manager* | Trial only | Trial only |
| Online Store | No | Yes |
* Channel Manager costs $15 USD/month after the initial 14-day trial
Honestly, there are very few instances where we’d recommend the Connect Domain plan – it comes with very few Wix Hotels features enabled, and also displays Wix ads on your website. You’d probably need to purchase the Combo plan or higher, depending on your requirements. If your hotel sells merchandise or services online, you might also consider the Business plan, which allows you to add an online store to your website.
Can I see some examples of real sites using Wix Hotels?
Absolutely! Here are some real hotel websites built with Wix. You can also find a few in our full list of Wix website examples.
Etna Quota Mille
Athenaeum
Conclusion
For a tool that will cost you just a little bit extra per month, Wix Hotels does a surprisingly good job of taking care of what can often be a complicated task for hotel owners. It really simplifies the booking experience for both guests and managers, while still maintaining a high level of professionalism to the outside world.
We particularly like its integrations with popular booking tools like TripAdvisor, Expedia and Airbnb, which we think can really help to drive more bookings, and streamline the process of managing them.
Although there are a few minor limitations, Wix has a reputation for constantly adding to and improving its tools. We wouldn’t be surprised to see Wix Hotels catering to a much wider market, beyond small hotel and B&B operators, very soon.
Still have questions about Wix Hotels? Or have any feedback about the user experience for guests? Let us know in the comments section below!
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