How to Create an Airbnb Clone Website with WordPress?

Want to create a home rental listing site like Airbnb, HomeAway, Vrbo, etc,? You have come to the right place. In this guide, I will give you a user-friendly and cost-effective way to create an Airbnb clone website.

Why an Airbnb Clone Website?

Airbnb has become a very successful home rental business model in a short time. But it’s business model is not very complicated and you can create a home rental site just like Airbnb.

Important Features of Airbnb Website

Before cloning the Airbnb website, let us first understand the basic features of Airbnb’s website.

• Easy search box – search for places to stay by giving the destination, check-in/out dates, and number of guests.
• Search results pages – this page gives the results of your search with multiple ways to sort and filter the selection of homes
  
• Search by moving the map – you can look for nearby Airbnb homes by moving the map without going to other pages,
• Urgency – it informs the customers that homes are getting booked fast, and it makes customers take decisions sooner.
• Ratings, Reviews, and References. – reviews and ratings are given by guests, and only after the booking process is complete, whereas references are endorsements, both hosts and guests can receive from friends.
• Superhost – hosts with good reputations who have a minimum of 4.8 ratings, a 90% positive response rate are certified as Superhost, which helps travelers choose the best host.
• Social connections. Users can find places to rent from hosts who are direct Facebook friends, or friends of friends, or they can see if a Facebook friend has reviewed a host.
• Apartment Images – it has plenty of images, showing key features like beds, cooking equipment, etc. These images of verified by Airbnb staff.
• Clear Presentation of Information – the home listings have precise details such as Number of bedrooms, Cooking facilities, WiFi, Local amenities, etc.,
• Payments – it uses PayPal payments in the US and Braintree payments outside of the US.
• Mobile App – Airbnb website can be used on its mobile app on iOS and Android OS.

Creating an Airbnb Clone with WordPress

Airbnb is a billion-dollar company that has a highly customized website developed and maintained by thousands of developers. The Airbnb website is loaded with features. It is impossible to exactly replicate the entire Airbnb website.

But you don’t need all of its features if you just want to create a rental home listing website. We can create a website with the important features of Airbnb which could be called an Airbnb Clone.

There are 2 ways in which we can create an Airbnb-like website on WordPress. Both have different priorities. We will see both of them.

Creating a WordPress Website

Before moving on to WordPress themes and plugins, you need to get a domain and hosting for the home rental listing site. See this tutorial to get the domain, hosting, and to install WordPress on your domain. Then you can install the WordPress theme and plugins mentioned below.

Listify Theme + FacetWP plugin for an Airbnb Clone

One of the important features of Airbnb and why many people find it useful than other similar websites is that it gives you amazing Sorting and Filtering options.

It gives you so many options to filter, and still the site is very fast. If you to give your customers the same kind of ability to add filter and sort through all the home listings, then creating an Airbnb clone with Listify theme and FacetWP plugin is the best way to do it.

Listify Theme

Listify is a Directory WordPress theme with which you can create any type of listing website. It has a modern design and more importantly many features necessary to build an Airbnb clone site.

For additional features, it can be integrated with other WordPress plugins such as FacetWP plugin, WooCommerce Bookings plugin, etc.,

It is a premium WordPress theme which means you have to buy it here. There are no free options for an Airbnb like the site.

Installing Listify Theme

After purchasing the theme, you have to upload, install, and activate the theme on your WordPress website. Do not upload the whole Zip file from Them forest but upload only the Theme files.

Navigate to Appearance > Add New Themes > Upload.

Go to browse, and select the zipped theme folder. Hit “Install Now” and the theme will be uploaded and installed.

Once the theme is uploaded, you need to activate it. Go to  Appearance > Themes and activate the Listify theme.

Importing the Demo Site

Listify theme gives you 1-click importable ready-made demo sites that you can install on your site so that you don’t have to build your site from scratch. There is a Rentals demo which you can import to create the Airbnb clone. Just make sure that all the required plugins are installed before you import the demo.

Reviews and Rating System like Airbnb

The review system of Airbnb is another reason for Airbnb’s success. Your home rental site needs to have an excellent review system to succeed in this business. Listify theme comes with a basic review and rating system. But it is a long way from the review and rating system of the Airbnb website.

StarCat Reviews plugin

You need a StarCat Reviews plugin which allows you to replicate the review system for the Airbnb website. You can sort the home listing with the best ratings and can even certify renter with Super host verification. Users can also upvote the reviews which they found helpful. In this way, you can create a user review community of travelers.

FacetWP Plugin for Advanced Sorting and Filtering

After installing Listify Theme, we need to install the FacetWP plugin, which gives us advanced filtering and features just like we see on the Airbnb website. Listify themes comes with some limited but good filtering options, but with FacetWP you can create Ajax based fast filtering with any existing post types, custom fields and taxonomies with many facet types including Checkboxes, Dropdowns, Date ranges, Sliders, and even Proximity (Geo-location).

Again FacetWP is a premium plugin, and you can get it here.

Amelia Plugin for Bookings and Appointments

Amelia is an Enterprise-level WordPress booking and appointment plugin that you can use to replicate the booking system of Airbnb. The Listify theme by default suggests WooCommerce Bookings plugin but this requires WooCommerce and so your site could become bulky. If you want high performing and standalone WordPress booking plugin you can go with Amelia. It also works well with other decently coded themes.

Other WordPress plugins Required

You also need some other plugins to complete your Airbnb clone website.

WooCommerce Bookings plugin (premium) – for Airbnb like reservations

WooCommerce Product Vendors plugin (premium) – for charging renter and getting commissions

Polylang plugin (free) – for translating your website into other languages.

2nd Method: Homey Theme for Airbnb Clone

The 2nd method doesn’t have the advanced sorting and filtering options the previous method had. But the filtering options are not necessary if you want to create a simple home listing and renting website.

Homey is a WordPress booking theme for a residential or commercial rental business platform. It is an all-in-one solution, so you don’t have to buy any other WordPress plugins; hence, it cost-effective.

Homey Rental theme can be integrated with iCal to sync with Airbnb and other booking websites. It is necessary if you want to sync your booking calendar so that the same room/home is not booked on multiple websites simultaneously.

Also, the design of the Homey theme visually resembles the Airbnb website. So it gives the audience-friendly user experience. It is a premium theme which you can buy here.

What do you think of this post? Have you tried any of these WordPress themes and plugins? How did you create your Airbnb clone website?

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