Solaz – An Elegant Hotel & Lodge WordPress Theme

If you also sell on portals, your site does not find out on its own

A couple books the double room on your site and in the morning you discover those dates had already sold on a travel portal. The site said there was room because nobody told it otherwise.

A booking engine of your own only knows what happens inside your WordPress, and each external channel you add is one more calendar someone has to reconcile. Solaz, by Arrow-Theme, is a theme for hotels, motels, lodges, inns and bed and breakfasts that sells directly from your site with WP Hotel Booking, a plugin developed with ThimPress.

Among that plugin's features there is no calendar sync with portals. If all your sales go through the site, this does not affect you. If you split rooms across several channels, keeping availability current becomes your job.

The booking engine that comes with Solaz

• Rooms, bookings and customers: managed from the plugin, with several layouts for the room list and each room page.
• Pricing plans and extra packages: to adjust what each stay costs and offer add-ons.
• Blocked special dates: to close specific days to booking.
• Coupons, reports and multiple currencies: all part of the plugin's features.
• Payment: offline payment and PayPal, with Authorize.net and Stripe as plugin add-ons. Another add-on takes payment to WooCommerce.
• Reservation and checkout: the theme includes dedicated pages for both steps.

The part guests see before they book

Solaz comes with four homepage designs, several header and footer options, and different layouts for the gallery and blog, with one, two or three column pages. It is mobile responsive and Retina ready.

Layout is handled by Visual Composer and Ultimate Addons for Visual Composer, included with the theme along with Slider Revolution. You also get a mega menu, sticky menu, and color and Google Fonts settings.

If you want to sell more than nights, there is a WooCommerce shop with several layouts for the catalog and product page. WPML lets you translate the site, with a dedicated add-on for WP Hotel Booking.

Where the engine ends and your work begins

Solaz stays on your site. Among its features there is no connection to channel managers, so a property listed on several portals has to organize itself another way:

• Keep part of your inventory for your site. Rooms sold only there cannot clash with another channel.
• Close on your site what sold elsewhere. Do it as soon as the booking comes in and assign someone to the task, above all on high-demand dates.
• Review your volume. If that task repeats several times a day, it is worth considering a system with calendar exchange.

Also keep the builder in mind: the one included is Visual Composer. If your team works with Elementor, you will find a different way of editing pages.

Solaz and WP Hotel Booking through to the first test booking

You need WordPress and the plugins that come with the theme, starting with WP Hotel Booking. With that ready, the route is this:

1. Install Solaz and activate its plugins.
2. Choose one of the four homepages and use the one-click installation.
3. Create the rooms, pricing plans and extra packages.
4. Activate the payment methods you will offer.
5. Make a full test booking, from room search to payment, with the plugin version you plan to use.

When you need calendars shared with the portals

MotoPress Hotel Booking exchanges iCal calendars with Booking.com, Airbnb and other platforms, so a booking made there blocks the dates on your site and the other way round. That exchange is periodic, not instant.

If you prefer a theme with that plugin as its base, Sunway is built on it. The catalog also has CozyStay, another hotel theme.

Four questions from anyone opening a booking site

Does Solaz sync availability with Booking or Airbnb?

That sync is not among the features of WP Hotel Booking. To exchange calendars, look at MotoPress Hotel Booking.

Can I charge in advance?

Yes, with PayPal or the Stripe and Authorize.net add-ons. You can also accept offline payment.

Can it sell products too?

Yes. The theme includes a WooCommerce shop with several layouts for the catalog and product page.

Can the site be translated?

Yes, with WPML. WP Hotel Booking also has its own WPML add-on.