Case Presentation
Andrew Rose a business magnate from Colorado wished to create an online community marketplace exclusively for cannabis lovers. He precisely wanted to erect a site that lists out cannabis friendly accommodation. As the framework of Apptha airhotels conformed to his business objective, he decided to purchase Apptha airhotels script for creating budandbreakfast.com. However, as per his business requirements he needed some additional features and he approached us to implement the same.
Technical Refinements Involved in Accomplishing Andrew’s Goal
The Bud and Breakfast is a continual project that had ample scope to work on diverse aspects, thereby giving our developers a good exposure. With a dedicated team deployed, the functional fine tunings were carried out in a phased manner. Let us explore them.
Request Booking
Cannabis friendly properties that get listed in Bud and breakfast could have also been listed in third party sites by the property owners. So customers might book without prior knowledge on the property’s availability. Hence to avoid such an embarrassment, we have incorporated the request booking feature. As per this feature, when a customer books a property for a particular time period, the host/property owner receives a request notification. The host can approve/disapprove the request based on the property availability.
MyAllocator API Integration
The request booking feature kept the clients in dark with regard to property’s availability. Hence as a part of our functional refinement, we have integrated the MyAllocator API with the API of Bud and Breakfast. The reason behind doing so is that MyAllocator synchronizes the inventory of Bud and Breakfast with the other online community marketplaces. So in case a property listed in Bud and Breakfast is booked on a third party site, then MyAllocator automatically updates the property’s availability status as booked. Hence customers get a better clarity with regard to the property availability.
Incorporated Distance Specific Search Filters
The Airhotels script comes with price specific searches. But our client wanted to streamline the search option furthermore. Hence we integrated distance specific search filters. Hosts need to set the latitude and longitude attributes of their property. Once they set these attributes, they get stored in the database. When a customer navigates the distance slider the properties that fall in the radar automatically gets fetched from the database.
Designed a Form Layout for Levying Additional Fees
As many property owners are involved in Bud and Breakfast, our client wanted them to have the full liberty put forth their tariff plan. So we designed a new form layout and included options like pet fee, additional guest charges, cleaning fee, refundable damage deposit and so on. Property owners can activate the options that comply with their tariff plan.
Installed WordPress Blog
Since Bud and Break was a raw venture by our client, he decided to leave no stone unturned. Knowing the significance of search engine optimization, he desired to have a separate blog section in his website. For posting blogs we zeroed in on wordpress platforms. However, the Airhotels script is built on a Magento platform. So using a third party extension we integrated the blog template with the existing Magento platform. Hence our client could post blogs regularly and optimize his web page.
Future Scope of Work
Currently our developers are working on integrating the API of leafly.com with the API of Bud and Breakfast. Leafly.com is a very popular cannabis information providing website and they receive a traffic influx of 6 million visitors per month. Getting Bud and Breakfast listed in leafly.com will certainly reap rich business dividends. Our future work includes Google Hotel Finder API integration.
When quizzed about the overall experience on working with Andrew our module lead Abubaker quipped “Working for Bud and Breakfast has been a continual journey. Our client Andrew has a keen eye for detail and is very resolute on what he wants. Every since the project commenced we have walking a tightrope because Andrew can just not tolerate even a minor glitch. However our boys enjoyed working as this project gave them exposure to some challenging work.”
Fruits of Labor
At the end of the day, nothing is as satisfying as receiving an appreciation from a client. So this is what Andrew had to say about us
“I left Macromedia in 2000 to be a high school teacher so I haven’t done a development project in a long time. It’s been personally good for me to be involved with this project and to work with competent people like you all. If asked, I would recommend Contus to other developer managers (who had their own QA people) So, thanks.”
Technical Refinements like check in & check out options matches with the theme and in advanced search filter options based on distance & price made the booking more simple.
Based on the city and pricing list option enables to choose the accommodation better.
The scope of work, API Integration, Blogging etc depicted well. The work flow module executed well and this booking website looks cool.
Hi Alan,
Hope you enjoyed this article. Also check our other articles too. Thanks for your present here.
Just I checked this website. Attractive slideshows, particularly the gallery view makes it beautiful and appealing. Such a background design will sync perfectly with an accommodation booking site.
Hi Xaver,
Thanks for your valuable comment.
This case study is awesome, great written and include approximately all vital information’s. As the client needs and how you made with their needed space, every thing fueled in a perfect manner.
I was searching like this to enhance case studies vision towards my product. Thanks for sharing!
Hello Aliza,
It’s great to hear your words. Hope this resource helped well for your products. Check frequently to get more updates.
Thanks!
Integrating the MyAllocator API was a good move as customers will not encounter any confusion while booking an accommodation. Commendable job.