WordPress Rentals Search Widget Updated with Amenities Filter!

Within WordPress, under Appearance > Widgets, you will find the Rentals Search widget. This is a simple, but powerful tool for vacation rental managers and owners with larger number of properties who want to make it easier for their website guests to search their inventory.

One of the coolest features of this widget is that it filters in real-time to display the number of properties that match your search criteria. Too many systems force the guest to choose a series of search criteria and then click a “search” button, only to return a message, “I am sorry no results matched your search criteria, please try again!”. How frustrating is that!!!

With Lodgix we return the results on the fly. Thus if zero results are returned you’ll know immediately which criteria caused the results to equal zero and allow you to make an adjustment.

Note: The Location field can be setup under the area manager within Lodgix.

Amenities Filter – New Feature 5/15/2013

The rental search widget within the Lodgix.com WordPress plugin can now filter by amenities! To enable the amenities filter:

Within WordPress go to Appearance > Widgets
Find the Rentals Search widget and there will be a check box for “Amenities”
Check the box and click the Save button.
Go to Settings > Lodgix settings within WordPress and at the bottom of the page, click on the button Save and Regenerate the pages (this will force the widget to pull the chosen amenity filters from Lodgix).

How do I select which amenities the guests can select to filter their search results?

Lodgix will pull the same amenities you have setup for the internal calendar tape. Read through the support article on how to configure the calendar tape filter options and you’ll be all set!

Notes from Development

The rentals search widget uses AJAX and a REST API. Any designer with minimum jQuery knowledge can query the API and receive the same results with a URL like:

/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=p_lodgix_custom_search&area=ALL_AREAS&bedrooms=1&id=&arrival=2013-02-22&nights=1

This will return 1 Property Found, etc. With that knowledge designer can use any code to query the API and redirect to the search page.

Testimonials

When only the BEST will do!
Pros: My "real job" requires me to be available 24x7, so I knew I needed a system that could automate everything in VRBO business the way *I* wanted it automated and this system is it!! I tried a few others but I knew they weren't for me when I was still trying to learn them three days later. With the Lodgix system I was up and running within a day because the system is *super intuitive* and just that easy to use. I think the one of the best testaments to the system is every time I ask myself "I wonder if I could have the system do X" and it can. Like others I enjoy: 1) Waking up in the morning to bookings that occurred over night while I slept. 2) Reading emails from my staff confirming job assignments that were automatically assigned by the system based on bookings. 3) Being able to handle all credit card transactions within the same system. Finally, I have been able to achieve a 70% occupancy rate through mid 2014 with no effort since Lodgix does all the work! Cons: Not a one! Overall: When only the best will do - get Lodgix, there is simply nothing better! Vendor Response by Lodgix.com Hi John, thanks for the kind words. It's been great working with you over the past couple months. I think you'll be quite pleased when we get into the some of the fun social media stuff in the latter part of this year. We'll be putting out some neat tools for Facebook and Twitter to bring those important marketing vehicles into Lodgix to allow for easy updating, booking and automation using Lodgix. Thanks again!

John Cummings, Owner
Home in the Hawthorne