How do you create a booking website for a luxury villa?

A luxury villa sells on trust: the guest commits a large sum, often from abroad, for a property they have never seen. Its booking website must therefore show the property in detail, welcome visitors in their own language, secure payment in two stages (a large deposit, an early balance charge) and offer the services that make the difference. Here is how to build this journey with WordPress and GDA Kraft Booking, using a fictitious example.

The example used in this article

Fictitious values: a 10-person villa with a pool and 5 bedrooms, rented by the week in summer and for stays of at least 4 nights the rest of the year, to French and European guests. The price ranges from €3,500 to €9,000 per week depending on the season.

What luxury guests expect

How do you present the villa?

The GDA Kraft Booking design modules (Kraft Designer, included in the plugin, “Kraft Designer” menu) are designed for this type of property:

• galleries for overall photos;
• a room-by-room tour, which presents the villa space by space (living room, kitchen, each bedroom, outdoor areas);
• a guest book and display of your Google or Trustpilot reviews (Kraft Designer › “Google & Trustpilot reviews”), in addition to the guest reviews collected by Kraft Booking (“Reviews” menu).

They are placed with your page builder (Gutenberg, Elementor or Divi 5; Bricks is announced as coming soon). See Galleries, room-by-room tour and guest book.

State in the description what a discerning guest wants to know before paying: floor area, exact bed configuration, pool equipment and safety, accessibility, distances, check-in and check-out times and, for a villa in France, the property's registration number, which French law requires in the rental offer (see Holiday let registration number). Elsewhere, check the local registration rules.

What deposit and balance suit a villa?

For large amounts, two settings protect your week:

• a deposit of 40 to 50%, which genuinely commits the guest;
• an early balance charge, for example 45 days before arrival, to leave time to re-let the property if the charge fails.

Fictitious example for a €7,000 week, 50% deposit, before 30 June 2027:

The service fee is 0.9%, reduced to 0.45% until 30 June 2027; Stripe's processing fees come on top according to Stripe's pricing. These settings are made per rate plan, on the villa form's “Rates & seasons” tab, “Deposit and balance” panel: “Deposit (%)” (here 50) and “Balance due before arrival (days)” (here 45) › “Save the schedule”. There is no global deposit setting. The service fee is paid by the guest, on a “Service fee” line added to the total. The full reasoning is in Take a deposit online.

The balance and strong authentication

The balance is charged off-session, to the card saved by Stripe when the deposit was paid. For a large amount, the guest's bank may require 3-D Secure confirmation: if the charge fails, the guest receives a “Pay the balance” email so they can pay it themselves. An early balance charge leaves time to deal with this calmly. As due dates approach, follow payments in Kraft Booking › Bookings (“05 Payments” tab of each booking file); the alert for a failed charge is set in Settings › “Automatic reminders”.

What about a security deposit?

It is common to ask for a security deposit (damage deposit) for a villa. Handling one is not among the features announced to date in GDA Kraft Booking: if you require one, arrange it by your own means and describe it precisely in your rental agreement (see Holiday rental agreement).

How do you welcome international guests?

Kraft Lang, the multilingual feature included in the plugin, automatically translates the site, including the forms, calendar and guest area, into French, English, Italian, Spanish and German: tick the languages in Kraft Booking › Settings › “Site and admin languages” (“Langues du site et de l'administration”; addresses /en/, /it/, /es/, /de/). Your own texts (description, services, terms) are translated the same way, and translations can be corrected in Kraft Console › “Translations”. Emails and documents (confirmation, invoice) do not follow the guest's language at present: they are written in your site's language. See Multilingual sites.

On the payment side, international cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay are accepted on the Stripe-hosted payment page. Amounts and dates are shown in the format of the guest's language.

Which services should you offer?

Services (the form's “Services” tab) let you sell what gives a villa its value. Fictitious examples:

For a service whose exact price depends on the guest (a dinner depending on the menu chosen), enter a base price and state in the label that details are confirmed by message. In France, the tourist tax on an unclassified villa, calculated as a percentage, quickly reaches the cap set by the municipality; the plugin does not do this percentage calculation: in the “Tourist tax” panel of the “Services” tab, enter the amount per person per night that you have calculated. See Tourist tax for an unclassified furnished let. This rule applies in France only.

Points to watch

GDA Kraft Booking is published by Global Digital Agency and is in public beta 0.1, with version 1.0 planned for June 2027. For a villa where each week represents a large amount:

• make a complete test booking, payment included, before opening the site;
• check the price for each season in the “Quote simulator” in Kraft Console (“Rates” view);
• keep iCal sync active with the platforms where the villa is listed, and check Planning & rates › “Syncs” › “History & alerts” every day in high season.

Frequently asked questions

Can I ask for 100% of the stay at booking for a villa?

Yes: set “Deposit (%)” to 100 in the rate plan's “Deposit and balance” panel. For a high-value stay booked several months ahead, paying in two instalments is more comfortable for the guest; a 40 to 50% deposit is a good compromise.

Can the guest pay by bank transfer?

Yes. Record the transfer received in the booking file, “05 Payments” tab › “Add an offline payment” (Bank transfer) › “Record the payment”. Offline payments carry no service fee.

Are invoices issued in the guest's language?

Not at present: the invoice is issued in your site's language, with the details entered in Settings › “Document identity” (“Identité des documents”). For foreign guests, you can add a bilingual mention there, to be checked by your accountant.

Do I need an account to take payments online?

Yes. Online payment requires the free Kraft GDA account, with no bank card required to sign up, to which the site is linked, and Kraft Pay to be enabled. You can sign up at /en/inscription.