Businesses such as hotels, apartment rentals, costume hire, or equipment rental services often require bookings that span multiple nights or days. In these industries, it’s crucial to have a set of well-defined rules in place, including advance booking requirements, minimum stay durations, and maximum stay limitations.
The minimum stay requirement is particularly important as it ensures bookings meet a certain length threshold. For example, a hotel may establish a minimum three-night stay policy, which means guests must book accommodations for at least three consecutive nights. Implementing this rule prevents extremely short stays that could disrupt operational efficiency or diminish the overall guest experience.
By setting a minimum booking duration of three nights, the hotel essentially requires guests to reserve their rooms for that specified period or longer. This safeguards against rapid guest turnover and allows the establishment to maintain consistent occupancy levels, streamlining housekeeping and other logistical processes.
Here’s when the Booking & Appointment Plugin for WooCommerce plugin’s Multiple Nights Booking type comes in.
Multiple Nights booking is divided into these types:
- Simple products booking
- Variable products booking
- Minimum number of nights booking for multiple nights
- Maximum number of nights booking for multiple nights
Let’s look at how to configure Multiple-night bookings for multiple days and set up the minimum stay for reservations.
1. Admin Section
Imagine you own and operate a hotel business. To ensure efficient operations and maintain a desirable guest experience, you want to implement a policy that requires all room reservations to be for a minimum of two consecutive nights or longer.
To set up this minimum stay requirement, start by creating a new bookable product for your “Hotel Country Inn” by navigating to Products > Add Product in your WordPress admin dashboard.
Once there, locate the Booking Meta Box section, which provides the necessary options to configure your bookable product offerings. Enable the Booking option, which will transform your standard WooCommerce product into a fully bookable product, allowing guests to reserve it for specific dates.
Select the Booking type as Multiple Nights from the dropdown as shown below:
Selecting Multiple Nights option
Then go to the Availability tab and add all the bookable weekdays along with all the settings as shown below. Within the Booking Meta Box, you’ll find settings to define the minimum and maximum night requirements for reservations.
Set the Minimum number of nights to book value to 2, ensuring that all guest reservations must be for at least two nights.
Adding setting and bookable weekdays
The additional settings in the Availability tab are Advance Booking Period, Number of dates to choose, Minimum Booking on any Date, Minimum and Maximum Number of Nights to book. The details for all the above-mentioned additional settings in the Availability tab are explained in our Multiple Nights Booking for Simple Products post.
As mentioned, only the field of Minimum number of nights to book settings in the Availability tab will be focused on here. It has been set to 2 Nights, as shown in the above screenshot.
This means that when a customer makes a reservation, they will have to reserve the room for at least 2 nights.
Click the Save Changes button after adding all the settings and enabling the bookable weekdays.
Below is how these settings will reflect on the front end so that your customers can make bookings.
2. Customer Section
As can be seen, the newly created product Hotel Country Inn is ready to accept bookings.
Newly created product displayed on the front end
The Start Date and End Date options are where you need to select the date of check-in and the check-out of your stay in the hotel.
Select the Start Date field from the calendar. For instance, here it has been selected 23rd March 2024.
Select the Start Date
Similarly, select the End Date.
The first available check-out date will be 25th March 2024. This is because the minimum number of nights to book was set to 2 nights, and hence, the 23rd and 24th of March will be disabled.
Note that the price for the rooms will be calculated based on the number of nights the room was booked.
Select the End Date
Once you select the Start date and End date, the Book Now! button will be enabled as shown below:
Add to Cart button enabled
When you click the Book Now! button, the order gets added to your cart.
Clicking the View Cart button will redirect you to the Cart page, which will show the booking details as shown below:
The cart page displaying the booking details
Click on the Proceed to Checkout button to go to the Checkout page, which will give you a preview of the actual order.
Please ensure you check everything and then click on the Place Order button.
Order details on the Checkout page
Your order is now placed, and you will receive an order confirmation as shown below:
Order confirmation of the booked product
While the previous example demonstrated the minimum night booking feature using a simple WooCommerce product, the true power of this functionality extends to Variable products as well. This allows you to offer different room types or accommodation options, each with its own set of booking rules and requirements.
In Summary
Setting up hotel reservations with a minimum stay policy is a straightforward process using the “Minimum number of nights to book” option available in the Booking & Appointment Plugin for WooCommerce. This flexible feature empowers you to define the minimum duration for bookings, ensuring seamless operations and an enhanced guest experience at your hotel or rental property.
Whether you’re offering a single room type or a diverse range of accommodation choices through Variable products, the plugin provides a user-friendly interface to configure and enforce your desired minimum stay requirements. Guests can then easily browse, compare options, and complete reservations that align with your established policies, streamlining the entire booking process.
By leveraging the capabilities of the Booking & Appointment Plugin for WooCommerce, you can effortlessly implement industry-specific booking rules, such as minimum night stays, and tailor the experience to meet the unique needs of your hospitality or rental business.