The Client wanted a model to be developed that would provide the users with a facility to choose best hotels according to their needs, and book rooms in the chosen hotels. The main idea of the business model was to help users search hotels easily from a wide variety of options. In the initial stages, the focus was to enable searches for hotels in the USA and Canada. Subsequently, Europe and other Asian countries were to be included.
Once the project was handed over to us, we first performed a detailed study of the requirements of the business model. In order to meet the different needs of the client and help the website target users, we decided to make more than one site for the client.
Each site had different target users and functionalities, although the main requirement was to help them to find hotels. One of the major functionalities implemented in the project was the integration of Google maps, which allowed users to judge the accessibility aspects prior to booking. A functionality was also developed whereby users can download the details of a hotel in PDF format. The different sites we built into the project were:
Letsgopets.com (www.letsgopets.com): This site provides the functionality to help users find hotels which allow pets. This site also gives information about Pet grooming, Airline pet policies, car travel tips etc for users.
Roadsidehotels.com (www.roadsidehotels.com): This site provides the details of the hotels, which are near major highways. All types of the hotels are listed on this site. The other functions are the same as for the Letsgopets like downloading the PDF format of the list and also showing the hotels on the Google maps.