Modern Hotel Booking — Direct Booking Engine, Availability Calendar & Vacation Rental PMS

Stop losing 15%–25% of every stay to Airbnb, Booking.com and VRBO commissions.

Modern Hotel Booking is a fast, self-hosted hotel booking plugin, direct booking engine, availability calendar and property management system (PMS) built for independent bed and breakfasts (B&Bs), vacation rentals, boutique hotels, guesthouses, resorts and cabin accommodations.

Engineered for WordPress 7.1+ (with full support back to WP 6.6) on a 100% Zero-jQuery Vanilla JS and React architecture, this hotel reservation system and booking calendar renders interactive availability calendars with an ~70% smaller initial HTML payload than legacy accommodation booking plugins—so your pages stay fast, mobile-friendly (>= 44px WCAG 2.2 AA touch targets), and visually refined out of the box with its signature Midnight Navy & Champagne hospitality aesthetic or your active theme.json palette.

“The plug-in does everything needed for my B&B.” — @georger1970 (5-Star WordPress.org Review)

Why Independent Property Owners Switch to Modern Hotel Booking

• Zero Commissions & 100% Direct Bookings — Keep 100% of your room revenue with your own direct booking engine. Every hotel reservation, guest profile, and folio ledger transaction lives in dedicated, indexed custom database tables on your own WordPress server.
• Complete Free Booking Flow (No Paid Gateway Required to Start) — Accept direct bookings and room reservations immediately out of the box using Pay on Arrival, Direct Bank Wire Transfer (IBAN/BIC/SWIFT), Revolut Pay (Link & QR Code), or WhatsApp Click-to-Chat confirmations.
• Blisteringly Fast Progressive Calendar (0 KB jQuery) — Front-heavy progressive hydration renders the first 4 months immediately for instant page load and preloads up to 2 years in the background during idle browser time.
• Passwordless Guest Self-Service Portal ([mhbo_guest_portal]) — Guests open their booking via a 1-click cryptographic magic link (or Booking ID + Email lookup) to view their personalized stay countdown, live USALI billing ledger, and 1-tap printable travel voucher, or to cancel/modify dates without creating a WordPress account.
• Built-In Email Delivery Health Inspector & 14 Templates — Solves the #1 headache in WordPress booking plugins (confirmation emails landing in spam) with a live 4-tile diagnostic probe for SMTP transport, sender-domain alignment, SPF DNS records, and DMARC policies.
• Native 2026 WordPress Architecture — Built with 8 Gutenberg blocks, Headless React DataViews (@wordpress/dataviews), FullCalendar v7.1.3 operational views, and an optional 24/7 AI Concierge powered by the WordPress 7.1 Abilities API (wp_register_ability).

Everything Included in the Free Edition

Every feature listed below is 100% included in the Free plugin on WordPress.org—no booking caps, no trial timers, and no forced third-party account signup.

1. Progressive Availability Calendar, Direct Booking Engine & Slide-Out Drawer

• Unlimited Room Types & Physical Room Units — Manage single vacation rentals, bed and breakfast (B&B) rooms, guesthouse suites, boutique hotel accommodations, or multi-unit room categories with automatic physical unit allocation and natural room-number sorting (Room 1, Room 2 ... Room 10).
• Atomic Double-Booking Prevention — Database-level hotel reservation locking (GET_LOCK) prevents race-condition overbookings when two visitors check out on your booking calendar for the same dates simultaneously.
• Slide-Out Modal Checkout Drawer — Guests select check-in and check-out dates on the progressive availability calendar, review the instant "Continue to Book" summary card and complete their direct booking inside a smooth slide-out modal drawer without page reloads.
• Responsive 3-Column Accommodation Showcase — Display guest rooms in a responsive card grid ([mhbo_rooms]) with amenity badges, guest capacity chips, photo galleries, and starting nightly rates.
• Flexible Room Rates & Stay Rules — Configure per-room custom nightly rate overrides, extra adult occupancy surcharges, global minimum and maximum stay nights, custom advance booking windows (14 days up to 2 years), and room maintenance status blocks.
• Refined Hospitality Design & Dark Mode — Ships with a polished Midnight Navy (#1a365d) & Champagne (#f2e2c4) default theme, automatic theme.json token inheritance, and .mhbo-theme-dark WCAG AAA high-contrast dark mode support.

2. Commission-Free Direct & Offline Payment Gateways

• Pay on Arrival (Cash or Card Terminal at Front Desk) — Let guests reserve online and settle their balance when they check in.
• Direct Bank Wire Transfer (IBAN / BIC / SWIFT) — Turnkey banking configuration displaying your Account Holder, IBAN, BIC/SWIFT, and reference instructions with 1-click copy buttons at checkout and in confirmation emails.
• Revolut Pay (Direct Link & Scannable QR Code) — Accept low-fee instant payments via your revolut.me or merchant link and checkout QR code.
• WhatsApp Click-to-Chat Reservations — Let guests submit a reservation and open a pre-filled WhatsApp confirmation message directly with your property.

3. Passwordless Guest Self-Service Portal ([mhbo_guest_portal])

• Instant Verified Lookup & 1-Click Magic Links — Guests unlock their portal via an HMAC-signed magic link in their confirmation email or by entering their Booking ID + Email—greeting them by name with their VIP status badge and live stay countdown.
• Itemized USALI Billing Ledger — Displays a transparent breakdown of nightly accommodation charges, applicable taxes/fees, verified payments received, and remaining balance due.
• Self-Service Cancellations & Modification Requests — Guests can cancel unpaid bookings immediately in one click (automatically releasing room inventory) or submit a guarded cancellation/date-change request for paid stays.
• 1-Tap Printable Travel Voucher — Dedicated @media print stylesheet formats a clean, ink-friendly confirmation voucher with property address, check-in/out times and reservation summary.

4. Executive Command Center, FullCalendar Grid & 2-Column PMS Workstation

• Executive Hotel Command Center — Unified operational dashboard featuring a circular Live Occupancy Pulse gauge, 6-Box Front-Desk KPI Micro-Grid (Arrivals Today, Departures Today, In-House Guests, Action Needed, Available Tonight, Total Stays), 8 Quick Operational Command Shortcut Cards, and a native WP Dashboard summary widget.
• Main Hotel Booking Calendar & Hover Popovers — Powered by FullCalendar v7.1.3, the month-grid operational calendar displays multi-room booking bars, occupancy KPIs, and interactive event hover popovers showing guest stay details, folio totals, and a 1-click link directly to their Guest CRM profile.
• 2-Column Front-Desk Manual Reservation Workstation — Enter walk-in and phone bookings in seconds: select a returning guest from the CRM Quick-Fill dropdown (with instant auto-fill and VIP/Caution ribbon alerts), pick dates on the inline Flatpickr calendar, watch real-time server-side USALI folio calculation, and record payment with 1-tap quick-tender buttons (Pay in Full, Deposit Only, Pay on Arrival).
• Verified Folio Payment Ledger — Record partial or full front-desk payments (Cash, POS Terminal, Bank Wire, Check) with strict transaction-summed accounting—eliminating phantom deposit balances.
• Granular Hospitality Staff Roles — Built-in Hotel Manager, Front Desk Staff, and Housekeeping Staff WordPress roles enforce clear 3-tier capability boundaries so staff only access the screens they need.

5. Guest CRM Directory & Slide-Out Profile Drawer

• Headless React DataViews Guest Directory — Search, filter, sort, and paginate guest profiles inside wp-admin using native WordPress DataViews (@wordpress/dataviews).
• Slide-Out Guest Profile Drawer — Click any guest row to smoothly slide out their profile drawer displaying Lifetime Value (LTV), total bookings, VIP status badge, chronological stay history timeline, 1–5 star staff ratings, private management notes and high-visibility Caution Flags (Do Not Rent / incident warnings).
• Zero-Overhead Opt-In Switch — Run the full Guest CRM or disable it completely with a single toggle.

6. Email Delivery Health Inspector & 14 Transactional Email Templates

• Live 4-Tile Email & DNS Health Grid — Automatically inspects whether WordPress is sending via SMTP or raw PHP mail(), verifies sender-domain alignment, and queries live SPF and DMARC DNS records to prevent booking emails from landing in spam.
• 1-Click Diagnostic Test Probe & Failure Capture — Trigger a live test email probe directly from Settings > Emails and catch silent mailer errors with automatic wp_mail_failed diagnostic banners.
• 14 Core Transactional Email Templates & Admin BCC Audit Trail — Manage 14 lifecycle notification templates with live placeholder insertion, theme-override support ({your-theme}/modern-hotel-booking/emails/), automatic deduplicated admin BCC financial archiving and multilingual translation for Polylang, WPML, qTranslate-XT, and Bogo.

7. Optional 24/7 AI Hotel Concierge, WP 7.1 Abilities API & MCP Discovery

• Glassmorphic Virtual Receptionist — Optional floating or inline chat widget that answers visitor questions about live room availability, nightly pricing, check-in policies, amenities, and local tips using real-time database tools and interactive rate cards.
• Bring Your Own Free API Key or WP 7.0+ AI Connector — Connect Google Gemini (including free-tier Gemini keys from Google AI Studio), OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenRouter, or the native WordPress 7.0+ AI Client Connector (30 requests/hour/IP in Free).
• 10 Native WordPress 7.1 Abilities & Hybrid MCP Server — Registers 10 schema-validated hospitality abilities (mhbo/get-hotel-info, mhbo/check-availability, mhbo/get-room-details, mhbo/get-policies, mhbo/get-knowledge-base, mhbo/get-local-tips, mhbo/get-business-card, mhbo/create-booking-link, mhbo/get-price-breakdown, mhbo/recommend-rooms), exposes a Streamable HTTP Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server (with official WordPress/mcp-adapter bridge), generates llms.txt / llms-full.txt GEO manifests and an OpenAPI 3.1 specification, and includes browser-native Web Speech API bidirectional voice (Speech-to-Text microphone dictation input and Text-to-Speech spoken responses).

8. 8 Native Gutenberg Blocks, 11 Shortcodes & 3 Elementor Widgets

• 8 Native Gutenberg Blocks (Search "Hotel" in the Block Inserter): Booking Form (mhbo/booking-form), Room Availability Calendar (mhbo/room-calendar), Company Info (mhbo/company-info), WhatsApp Button (mhbo/whatsapp-button), Banking Details (mhbo/banking-details), Revolut Pay Details (mhbo/revolut-details), Hotel Business Card (mhbo/business-card), and AI Concierge Chat Widget (mhbo/ai-chat-widget).
• 11 Shortcodes: [mhbo_booking_form] (alias [modern_hotel_booking]), [mhbo_room_calendar], [mhbo_rooms], [mhbo_guest_portal], [mhbo_ai_concierge], [mhbo_company_info], [mhbo_whatsapp], [mhbo_banking_details], [mhbo_revolut_details], [mhbo_business_card] and [mhbo_payment_methods].
• 3 Native Elementor Widgets + Classic Sidebar Search Widget.

Who Is Modern Hotel Booking Built For?

• Bed and Breakfasts (B&Bs) & Country Inns — Replace paper diaries and 18% OTA commissions with an intuitive bed and breakfast booking calendar, Pay-on-Arrival or Bank Wire checkout, and reliable hotel reservation emails.
• Vacation Rentals, Chalets & Cabin Hosts — Rent whole vacation rental properties or individual cottages with per-unit rates, minimum-stay rules, WhatsApp or Revolut Pay checkout, and a self-service guest voucher portal.
• Boutique Hotels & Guesthouses (5–50 Rooms) — Run a complete boutique hotel and guesthouse front-desk command center with automatic physical unit allocation, walk-in PMS reservations, staff roles and a lifetime Guest CRM.
• Serviced Apartments & Extended Stays — Configure accommodation booking windows up to 2 years out with minimum/maximum stay controls and transparent USALI folio ledgers.
• WordPress Agencies & Freelancers — Deliver a fast, theme-native, GPL-licensed direct booking engine and hotel reservation system with template overrides, clean CSS variables and zero jQuery conflicts.

Optional Commercial Editions (Starter & Pro)

The Free edition runs a complete direct booking engine website with offline, bank wire, Revolut, or WhatsApp payments indefinitely. Optional commercial editions at modernhotelwp.com add:

• Modern Hotel Booking Starter — Stripe Elements (Cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, 3DS2), PayPal Smart Buttons, Braintree Drop-in, Dynamic PDF & HTML Tax Invoices, Multi-Mode Tax Engine (VAT Inclusive vs. Sales Tax/GST Exclusive & Split Lodging/Extras Rates), Child Occupancy & Age-Tiered Pricing (ages 1–17), Prevent Same-Day Turnover, and 60 req/hr/IP AI Concierge capacity with native voice dictation & spoken responses.
• Modern Hotel Booking Pro — Everything in Starter plus Automated 2-Way iCal Sync (Airbnb, Booking.com, VRBO, Expedia & Google Calendar), Multi-Tier Deposits & Balance Payment Links, Fullscreen Front-Desk Tablet Kiosk & Live Tape Chart (Gantt), Multi-Room Group Bookings & Split Folios, Housekeeping Manifests, Advanced Yield Rules (Seasonal Rate Schedules, Interactive FullCalendar Override Editor, Orphan-Gap Auto-Correction, Weekend Multipliers, Booking Extras, Promo Coupons), Guest CRM Marketing & Review Automation, STR Revenue Analytics (ADR, RevPAR, TRevPAR), and AI Concierge Pro (17 abilities/MCP tools, Google Hotel Center XML feeds, 200 req/hr capacity, and Studio ElevenLabs neural voice synthesis).

External Services & Privacy Disclosure

Modern Hotel Booking is self-hosted by default and never transmits guest booking data to any external server unless you explicitly enable one of the optional integrations below:

1. Google Fonts Typography (fonts.googleapis.com / fonts.gstatic.com — Free, Starter, Pro): Loads Inter and Outfit typefaces for calendar and dashboard typography via standard browser font requests (no cookies or guest form data sent). Google Fonts Privacy FAQ | Google Privacy Policy.
2. WhatsApp Click-to-Chat (Optional — Free, Starter, Pro): Redirects the guest’s browser to https://wa.me/ with a pre-filled reservation summary (check-in/out dates, room name, reference, guest name) only when enabled and clicked by the guest. WhatsApp Terms | WhatsApp Privacy Policy.
3. Revolut Pay Link / QR Code (Optional — Free, Starter, Pro): Redirects the guest to your configured revolut.me or Revolut Merchant URL upon checkout. Revolut Terms | Revolut Privacy Policy.
4. AI Concierge LLM Providers (Optional — Free, Starter, Pro; Disabled by Default): Sends guest chat messages and availability/pricing context (plus booking lookup/draft parameters in Pro) when you configure your own API key or the WP 7.0+ AI Client Connector. Endpoints: Google Gemini (generativelanguage.googleapis.com), OpenAI (api.openai.com), Anthropic (api.anthropic.com), OpenRouter (openrouter.ai), and ElevenLabs TTS in Pro (api.elevenlabs.io). Google API Terms | Google Privacy | OpenAI Privacy | Anthropic Privacy | OpenRouter Privacy | ElevenLabs Privacy.
5. Online Payment Gateways: Stripe, PayPal & Braintree (Optional — Starter & Pro Only): Processes card and wallet payments in Starter/Pro via api.stripe.com / js.stripe.com, api.paypal.com / www.paypal.com and api.braintreegateway.com / js.braintreegateway.com (sending booking total, currency, reference, and billing details; card numbers are tokenized directly by gateway SDKs). Stripe Privacy | PayPal Privacy | Braintree Privacy.
6. External OTA iCal Synchronization Feeds (Optional — Pro Only): Sends HTTP GET requests to external .ics calendar URLs configured by the administrator (Airbnb, Booking.com, VRBO, Expedia) in Pro.
7. Commercial License & Update Server (Starter & Pro Only): Sends license key, site URL and plugin version to https://modernhotelwp.com/ (and legacy https://startmysuccess.com/) in Starter/Pro (never present in Free). Modern Hotel WP Privacy Policy | StartMySuccess Privacy Policy.

Credits

Open-source JavaScript libraries bundled locally in the plugin package:
* Flatpickr v4.6.13 — MIT License — flatpickr.js.org
* FullCalendar v7.1.3 — MIT License — fullcalendar.io
* Chart.js v4.5.1 — MIT License — chartjs.org

Go Live in 5 Minutes (Quick Start)

1. In your WordPress admin dashboard, go to Plugins > Add New, search for Modern Hotel Booking, and click Install Now then Activate.
2. Set Your Hotel Timezone & Currency — Open Hotel Booking > Settings > General to configure your property timezone, currency formatting, check-in/out times, global minimum/maximum stay limits, and advance booking window.
3. Add Room Types & Physical Units — Go to Hotel Booking > Room Types and Rooms to add your accommodation categories, adult capacities, base nightly rates, extra adult surcharges, amenity badges, and physical units.
4. Enable Direct & Offline Payments — Under Hotel Booking > Settings > Business Info, configure Direct Bank Wire Transfer (IBAN/BIC/SWIFT), Revolut Pay QR/Link, or WhatsApp reservation requests alongside built-in Pay on Arrival.
5. Publish Your Booking Page — Insert any of the 8 native Gutenberg blocks (search "Hotel" in the Block Inserter) or place [mhbo_booking_form], [mhbo_room_calendar], [mhbo_rooms] and [mhbo_guest_portal] onto your pages.
6. Run Your Front Desk — Track today’s arrivals, departures, in-house stays, interactive FullCalendar popovers, walk-in reservations, and folio balances from your WordPress dashboard.

1. 

   Interactive Availability Calendar & Slide-Out Booking Drawer (GIF) — Front-end progressive Vanilla JS calendar (0 KB jQuery) with date selection, smooth scroll to the "Continue to Book" summary card, slide-out modal checkout drawer, Pay on Arrival selection, and instant confirmation.

2. 

   2-Column Front-Desk Manual Reservation PMS Workstation (GIF) — Front-desk reservation entry selecting a returning VIP guest from the CRM Quick-Fill dropdown with instant auto-fill, real-time USALI folio calculation, and 1-tap quick tender.

3. 

   Passwordless Guest Self-Service Portal & Printable Travel Voucher (GIF) — Instant verified lookup via Booking ID + Email (or 1-click magic link), unlocking a personalized greeting, VIP status badge, stay countdown, itemized USALI billing ledger and 1-tap printable travel voucher.

4. 

   Main Hotel Booking Calendar & FullCalendar Hover Popover (GIF) — Month-grid operational calendar showing multi-room bookings, occupancy KPIs, and an interactive event hover popover displaying stay details, folio total and a 1-click Guest CRM profile link.

5. 

   Guest CRM Directory & Slide-Out Profile Drawer (GIF) — Built on native WordPress React DataViews (@wordpress/dataviews); clicking any guest row smoothly slides out their profile drawer with Lifetime Value (LTV), stay history timeline, ratings and staff notes.

6. 

   Email Delivery Health Inspector & DNS Diagnostic Probe (GIF) — 4-tile live diagnostic grid inspecting SMTP mailer transport, sender-domain alignment, SPF DNS records, and DMARC policies with a 1-click test email probe.

7. 

   24/7 AI Hotel Concierge with WordPress 7.1 Abilities API (GIF) — Floating glassmorphic chat widget answering visitor availability and pricing questions in real time using live database tools and interactive room rate cards.

8. 

   Executive Hotel Command Center & Live Occupancy Pulse — Unified operational dashboard with circular Occupancy Pulse gauge, 6-box front-desk KPI micro-grid, and 8 Quick Operational Command shortcut cards.

9. 

   Granular Hospitality Staff Roles & Permission Boundaries — Built-in operational roles (Hotel Manager, Front Desk Staff, Housekeeping Staff) with a dedicated 3-column capability boundary overview.

10. 

    Accommodation Showcase & Responsive Room Rates Grid — 3-column responsive guest room showcase ([mhbo_rooms]) with amenity badges, guest capacity chips, photo galleries and starting nightly rates.

11. 

    Commission-Free Direct & Offline Payment Gateways — Turnkey offline payment configuration showing Direct Bank Wire Transfer settings (IBAN, BIC, SWIFT, Account Holder) alongside Revolut Pay QR and WhatsApp subtabs.

12. 

    Native Gutenberg Blocks & Block Themes Integration — WordPress Block Inserter searched for "Hotel", displaying all 8 native Modern Hotel Booking blocks ready to drop into any page or template.

13. 

    Automated Transactional Email Templates Catalog & BCC Audit Trail — 14 core transactional email notification templates with automatic deduplicated admin BCC audit archiving and full HTML/placeholder customization.

3.0.0

• Added: Passwordless Guest Self-Service Portal ([mhbo_guest_portal]) — 1-click cryptographic magic link authentication and verified Booking ID + Email lookup, personalized VIP greeting, stay countdown, live itemized USALI billing ledger, ink-friendly printable travel vouchers, instant self-service cancellations for unpaid reservations, and guarded stay modification requests.
• Added: 2-Column Front-Desk Manual Reservation PMS Workstation — Integrated PMS desk with CRM Guest Quick-Fill autocomplete (VIP and Caution Flag ribbons), inline Flatpickr calendar, real-time server-side USALI folio recalculation, and 1-tap quick-tender payment buttons (Pay in Full, Deposit Only, Pay on Arrival).
• Added: Guest CRM Core & Slide-Out Profile Drawer — Headless WordPress React DataViews (@wordpress/dataviews) directory with sliding profile drawer displaying Lifetime Spend (LTV), chronological stay history, 1–5 star staff ratings, private management notes and caution alerts.
• Added: Email Delivery Health Inspector & 14 Modular Email Templates — Live 4-tile diagnostic inspector (SMTP vs. mail(), sender-domain alignment, SPF & DMARC DNS health) with 1-click test probe, deduplicated admin BCC financial archiving, and theme-overridable template partials (EmailTemplate service).
• Added: Executive Hotel Command Center & WP Dashboard Widget — Unified operational workstation featuring a circular Live Occupancy Pulse gauge, 6-box front-desk KPI micro-grid and 8 quick operational command cards.
• Added: Granular Hospitality Staff Roles & Permission Boundaries — Dedicated Hotel Manager, Front Desk Staff, and Housekeeping Staff roles enforcing clear 3-tier capability boundaries.
• Added: 100% 15-Locale Native Translation Parity — Full native translations across 15 supported languages (5,719 strings each, zero missing) with compiled MO, L10N.PHP, and JSON files, plus quad-core multilingual compatibility (WPML, Polylang, qTranslate-XT, Bogo).
• Improved: Front-Heavy Progressive Calendar Hydration — Server renders an immediate 4-month availability window (~70% smaller initial HTML payload) and hydrates up to 24 months asynchronously during browser idle time (requestIdleCallback).
• Improved: FullCalendar v7.1.3 & Interactive Hover Popovers — Upgraded calendar engine with screen-reader table semantics, interactive stay details hover popovers and direct 1-click links to Guest CRM profiles.
• Improved: 3-Tier Product Architecture Alignment — Structured package distribution across Free Core (WordPress.org), Starter (Stripe, PayPal, Braintree, PDF Tax Invoices, Multi-Mode Tax, Child Age Pricing), and Pro (Fullscreen Live Tablet Mode with Tape Chart Gantt, 2-Way iCal Sync, Housekeeping Operations, and AI Concierge Pro).
• Improved: Enterprise WordPress 7.1+ & PHP 8.2–8.4 Architecture — 100% Zero-jQuery Vanilla JS and React design, PHPStan Level 8 baseline-free certification across all 166 files, prepared dynamic SQL statements and native WordPress 7.1 Abilities API integration.

For the full historical changelog of earlier versions, see changelog.txt.