Potential Client Wants Hotel Website

hey everyone, i have a meeting with someone on Monday who wants a website for their Hotel. would you guys give me a rough estimate as to how much i could charge them? i dont have all the details now, but seems like they have no website right now at all

How would you be designing the website? Would you be coding it from scratch or using a CMS such as Wordpress?

How long is a piece of string? Are you building a site for a flop-house in Paharganj in Delhi? Are you building a website with integrated booking system for a 5-star boutique hotel? Ask properly and you shall receive.

danny_563 said:

How would you be designing the website? Would you be coding it from scratch or using a CMS such as Wordpress?

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I will get more information on Monday, but i will most likely use WordPress.

ThreadKiller: you really are a "thread killer" aren't you? i specifically said "hotel", and that i do not have specifics now whether its a "5 star hotel" or a 13 star hotel. Anyway, move along and spare this thread, i dont need a "thread killer". you obviously can't read

there are industry prices for web design in general, and a hotel site based on what most sites are saying its $2500 minimum to $9000, because of the amount of content/pages/elements, etc

Dude, even if it's a hotel website certain features has to be involved. You are beating the bush with your question, better know what features they need and start from there.
Here are some of the important features I think a hotel website would need.
1. Online Reservation
2. Gallery
3. Online Services / Contact form / Chat (Optional)
4. Build from scratch to fulfill their need
5. Online Payment for the reservation

There are others things that business owners only knows, listen to them and make sure you close the deal even if it's not profitable. Maintaining that site would give you a nice butter anyhow. Good luck!

Maja92 said:

r" aren't you? i specifically said "hotel", and that i do not have specifics now whether its a "5 star hotel" or a 13 star hotel. Anyway, move along and spare this thread, i dont need a "thread killer". you obviously can't read

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My reading capabilities are excellent, thank you. Why don't you learn how to express yourself using the English language! I know that you wrote hotel, duh, does that mean a one page description of a 10 rupee howel in Lahore, or does it mean 7 star lodgings in Dubai with integrated booking and tie-in to every booking system in the known galaxy? Learn how to express yourself and you will find that BHW will supply you with info, be vague and obtuse and you will get nothing in return. Capice?

And no, you did not say that you did not have the specifics now. You said"i dont have all the details now". There's a difference between ALL and NONE you know.

If you don't know what to charge them for this website, you shouldn't even go to the meeting.

OP if you've never developed a website for a hotel before, you're in for a rude awakening. Just the room inventory / booking management system alone is going to take you for a ride.

I would find out what their budget is first and go from there if you aren't sure what to charge them. Once they give you a ball park figure you can then tell them what kind of site you can build them / how many pages / whether to include the booking system or not. Once you tell them what you can't put into the site, then they might be more negotiable to pay more.

you should not ask $9k or even $2,5k for a shitty wordpress site as its clear you have no idea what you doing

Can't resist to give out our own information here

We sell restaurant sites built on Wordpress. The site is database-driven, with smartphone compatibility, interactive online food ordering menu system, QR code, table booking, map, multiple branches can be created, a comprehensive administrator section for the restaurant management, cash-on-delivery payment system (at present) by customers for online orders, plus a complete Wordpress blogging system obviously. There are other major developments going on... The entire system resides on client's hosting and has a one-time payment mode only.

I would like some specific inputs from you on whether the requirement is for a hotel site (room bookings, etc) or a restaurant site as mentioned above. I have seen that normally people often get confused between a hotel site and a restaurant site easily (they interchange the word routinely, especially those people who don't have English as their first language).

For some specific reasons and for a short time only, we have kept the price low, at less than $700. We do not offer refunds, and accept payment through bank wire transfer mode only. (It's a hard-learned lesson for us, and hence those strict 'rules' are set for the benefit of all concerned, especially us. lol. There is of course a demo model which is presented only to authentic restaurant owners).

If it's a hotel site (room bookings, etc.) then we don't create those type of sites yet.


P.S.: We also prefer to talk and work directly with the end-clients 'very soon' after entering the project.

ThreadKiller: dude... i said move along, so go ahead. if you are not making any money online, go take your frustration on another thread. like i said, i dont need a thread killer. "capice"?

ba_laz: wow, wow.. what did WordPress do to you? Are you retarded? WordPress is one of the best CMS in the world written in PHP, and therefore you can create virtually any site with it.

i guess according to you WordPress is "shitty" and any site made with WordPress? lol, move along.

SquidKai1: thanks, i will definitely find out their budget

srb: thanks for the info, i will update the thread with specifics after tomorrow

http://www.trumpchicago.com, you really think a better site or something similar cant be made in WordPress like Trumps Chicago Hotel's website? it's nothing special

Maja92 said:

ThreadKiller: dude... i said move along, so go ahead. if you are not making any money online, go take your frustration on another thread. like i said, i dont need a thread killer. "capice"?

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I think I will stay. Don't really care what you need. You were vague, I told you so, now you are acting all butthurt. Silly boy.

Here are my 2 cents,

if you plan on upsell them go in low. 1-3k$

if you are trying to get a onetime costumer and recieve a reference go in low. 2-3k$

If you know how to sell go in high. 4-6k$

If they got money sell high. 6-7k$

The problem that i think you have is that you will undersell yourself and become a bitch of them if you sell them low. They will however call you back for every small change they want on the website and will not refer you if you go in to low.

They will however be more than happly pay 6-7k$ if you sell them this website as proffesional as you can, and they will happely pay for an Service Agreement.

So choose one of those

Tangy said:

If you don't know what to charge them for this website, you shouldn't even go to the meeting.

OP if you've never developed a website for a hotel before, you're in for a rude awakening. Just the room inventory / booking management system alone is going to take you for a ride.

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I agree with this.

Also, you have no details about the project so there's no way to give a estimate.

It's like asking a mechanic, "how much is it to fix my car?" without even telling them what's wrong.

srb888 said:

Can't resist to give out our own information here

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You've been here long enough to know that your post isn't allowed outside of the BST section, obvious by your little preface to your "pitch".

Maja92 said:

ba_laz: wow, wow.. what did WordPress do to you? Are you retarded? WordPress is one of the best CMS in the world written in PHP, and therefore you can create virtually any site with it.

i guess according to you WordPress is "shitty" and any site made with WordPress? lol, move along.

....

http://www.trumpchicago.com, you really think a better site or something similar cant be made in WordPress like Trumps Chicago Hotel's website? it's nothing special

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Ba_laz is actually right, Wordpress was never intended to be a one size fits all type of glove for the Internet. Wordpress was developed to be a blog system that just so happened to have an easy to understand API for developers and a congruent look for users ( on the backend ). Wordpress doesn't necessarily make a site shitty, but it sure doesn't make a shitty site better.

And in regards to TrumpChicago comment, I'd say whoever built it got paid xx,xxx for the site and guess what they didn't use? Wordpress.

Now, you seem to have a problem with people critiquing you, and just want to lash back at them but just a tip, Wordpress isn't built to handle ( or should I say, a developer hasn't developed a hotel system ) that's going to be worth taking $9,000 dollars from your client. I'm fairly certain if your hotel client is anything bigger than a moms bed and breakfast that they'll want the whole 9 yards, and that'll require more work than a simple WP gui install and a theme from themeforest.

imprint said:

You've been here long enough to know that your post isn't allowed outside of the BST section, obvious by your little preface to your "pitch".

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Why can't I give him my information about how much OP can now quote his client based on an example that provides him with almost complete details, and on a particular segment of hotel business? I showed him what range he has available for a complete pro site so that he is armed with full details when he talks with his client if the client actually wants a similar site. The OP wasn't asking for an actual service to be done and IMO I wasn't giving out any.

I am fully aware that trading / dealing outside BST is NOT allowed. Just decided to give information and specific details because the OP seemed to be unaware of what to ask and how much to charge his potential client...

I also told him what we do and how we receive payments. It doesn't mean that we are or I am going to do business outside the BST or HAF sections here. He wanted specific information, and IMO I provided him that.

If still I am now lined in for a ban, then I honor the decision and welcome it.

Thanks.
Regards,



P.S.:
And obviously, you haven't done anything more with Wordpress. You don't even seem to know what Wordpress is capable of giving you and how fast. It also helps to keep the development time and the price quite low without actually compromising on quality, stability, scalability, etc. HTH you change your views on WP's capabilities some day.

We also use WP as a foundation for our system to help our good clients make use of its huge capabilities and go ahead and try different things -- use free add-ons, write additional codes, try out new things provided by WP and plugins, make their site look and perform better, get all the latest developments freely and WITHOUT depending on the creator (us) any more than they actually need to.

WP actually allows them to do more R&D easily and without restrictions. They can take full backups, restore them, add posts, make their ste extremely powerful and secure, change things around if they want to, and they can do SEO and keep in touch with everybody without asking us -- the 'manufacturer' of their site -- for writing more code and charging them 'unnecessary' additional fees from time to time. There are so many things people don't know about WP...

Maja92 said:

ThreadKiller: dude... i said move along, so go ahead. if you are not making any money online, go take your frustration on another thread. like i said, i dont need a thread killer. "capice"?

ba_laz: wow, wow.. what did WordPress do to you? Are you retarded? WordPress is one of the best CMS in the world written in PHP, and therefore you can create virtually any site with it.

i guess according to you WordPress is "shitty" and any site made with WordPress? lol, move along.

SquidKai1: thanks, i will definitely find out their budget

srb: thanks for the info, i will update the thread with specifics after tomorrow

http://www.trumpchicago.com/, you really think a better site or something similar cant be made in WordPress like Trumps Chicago Hotel's website? it's nothing special

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Nope,you are the one retarded here.Im bored to tears with this retard warrior attitude,you have no idea what you doing yet want to rip people off with $10k ...
And no,wordpress is not a cms,it is a blogging platform.It is your fault being lazy or stupid to learn a proper cms or code one ...
Btw i have nothing against WP i have WP sites with 100k uniques/day but it doe not make it an all in one super cms
ps. trump chicago is not wordpress either

ba_laz said:

Nope,you are the one retarded here.Im bored to tears with this retard warrior attitude,you have no idea what you doing yet want to rip people off with $10k ...
And no,wordpress is not a cms,it is a blogging platform.It is your fault being lazy or stupid to learn a proper cms or code one ...
Btw i have nothing against WP i have WP sites with 100k uniques/day but it doe not make it an all in one super cms
ps. trump chicago is not wordpress either

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Just so i get your post straight.

WP is not a cms, it's a blogging plattform.

Later you refering back to it as a cms.

My opinion it's a cms, but you are right. People tend to put to much weight on Wordpress and try to make it a "fit-everything" cms. You even can make a Social Community with it...

But, i disaggree with your statment, that wordpress is not right for this task. Wordpress just like joomla, makes great Portfolio, Blog website, while joomla and drupal are to strange to handle.

No offense,

Best Regards

PS: OP, if you don't know what you are doing just outsource the task, to someone who does

If the hotel just wants a simple brochure site, then you can certainly do it, and do it well with WordPress.

If they want room booking with that, then you can probably find a plugin or two to help.

If they want the booking bit integrated into their existing room management application, then you quickly run into problems.

Depending on the size of the hotel, the complexity of their pricing, the number of booking systems you have to integrate with, including payments, prebilling, confirmation, online checkout, meal reservations and so forth, it can get very ugly, and very very expensive very quickly. Easily 6 figures.

Threadkiller is right.

Without giving more information on the scope of the project, we can't really help.

And given your OP, I'd say if they ask for anything more than a brochure site (like the Trump site you linked to), then run.

srb888 said:

And obviously, you haven't done anything more with Wordpress. You don't even seem to know what Wordpress is capable of giving you and how fast. It also helps to keep the development time and the price quite low without actually compromising on quality, stability, scalability, etc. HTH you change your views on WP's capabilities some day.

We also use WP as a foundation for our system to help our good clients make use of its huge capabilities and go ahead and try different things -- use free add-ons, write additional codes, try out new things provided by WP and plugins, make their site look and perform better, get all the latest developments freely and WITHOUT depending on the creator (us) any more than they actually need to

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I have developed with Wordpress ( and plugins ) and just about every open source platform out there, and I told you why people use WP to develop sites, I'm fully aware how powerful it is, but also what the original intent was to be. i.e. Wordpress wasnt intended to be a major ecommerce platform, regardless of the plugins for it. I actually just did a recode of a site that used (and got screwed) WP for its ecommerce/membership platform, it was a terrible choice, but people think that Wordpress (and its an easier sale to clients) is a one fit solution. Your first paragraph describes what a FRAMEWORK does, not what Wordpress should do.

if you're working with business' that aren't mom and pop stores (and he'll, even them) they usually don't get into adding plugins or doing SEO on their own. They want to run their business, not screw around with plugins. If that's part of your pitch and it works for you then keep it, but I can destroy WP when it comes to a complex / not a simple informational website / blog site.

Anyways SRB, we both know no one is going to change their opinion, so keep doing what you do if it works for ya.