Apartment booking website case study
This online apartment booking system case study showcases Onix’s skills in creating appealing, user-friendly & efficient web apps.
Travel
Industry
7 specialists
Team size
Indonesia
Location
7 months
Project duration
[ Business goals and context ]
Kozystay is an Indonesian property management start-up.
The service targets primarily middle- to upper-income tourists or business travelers and offers premium apartments and houses in the best locations of Jakarta and Bali. Kozystay aims to redefine the guests’ experience of Indonesia by ensuring exceptional comfort and a feeling of home.
Looking to decrease reliance on third-party platforms like Airbnb and Booking.com, Kozystay began to consider its own online apartment booking system development. The objectives were: ﹂To enable guests to book directly on the Kozystay website, ensuring an efficient, seamless process.
﹂To integrate the website with Kozystay’s existing channel management software for the management of reservations, availability, and pricing.﹂To design a platform that can accommodate an expanding property portfolio and geography without compromising the ease of management.
Kozystay’s management started looking for a creative web design and development team capable of building the minimum viable product (MVP) for them. When they approached Onix, they already had a vision of the future website’s look and functionality. They also had some web page wireframes prepared but still wanted recommendations on improving the wireframes and their branding.
[ Product scope ]
The Onix team was tasked with:
Creating the user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) for streamlined accommodations booking using preliminary wireframes provided by the client.
Developing a unique brand identity for the online accommodation booking service.
Building a scalable platform and integrating it with the client’s chosen channel manager.
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[ Website flow and users ]
Kozystay’s customers are business travelers, staycation, and long-term guests.
Once on the Kozystay website, travelers can search for accommodations based on location, check-in and check-out dates, and the number of guests.
After exploring property details, they can proceed with booking. A personal account is created using their email. After a booking is completed, they receive a confirmation email.
The phases of the apartment booking website development:
Research and competitor analysis
First, the Onix team studied all the materials about Kozystay’s property management and online booking service and reviewed the provided wireframes to understand the future website’s structure and user journey.
Kozystay’s CEO showed Onix’s designers a reference site, wishing the new platform to be “like that but better.” Exploring it and several other rivals helped the team understand how to build an apartment booking website that would be competitive in the niche. It was determined that innovation and personalization should become Kozystay’s competitive advantages.
Simultaneously, Onix’s designers analyzed major booking platforms like Airbnb, Booking, and Sonder, looking for the latest trends and patterns that would be familiar to users worldwide: their use would ensure the Kozystay platform is intuitive and convenient.
Web app UX/UI design
Since the client provided wireframes for several web pages, Onix’s designers only drew the concept of the home page, enhanced the provided wireframes, and used them to design pages that were missing, such as the personal account and booking pages.
The designers employed an iterative approach to creating the Kozystay website UX/UI, working closely with software developers to ensure the feasibility of design solutions. Regular feedback from the client facilitated quick adjustments.
Booking service branding development
Simultaneously with the booking web app UX/UI design, Onix’s designer created a brand identity for Kozystay, including the logo, color palette, typography, and iconography to use for the website, mobile apps, marketing materials, etc.
The development of Kozystay’s logo went through three stages: concept mood board, logo and symbol creation, and visualization.
Prototyping
The designers developed interactive prototypes incorporating the platform’s key functionalities, transitions, and user interactions. They used these prototypes to gather feedback on usability, intuitiveness, and overall UX quality. Onix’s experts followed the best usability and accessibility practices to ensure the web app is easy to navigate and delightful to use.
The designers refined the prototypes through several iterations based on the client's feedback, hallway usability testing, and team discussions. The final approved version of the website design was adjusted for different screen sizes to ensure a consistent user experience across all devices.
Platform development
After the client approved the final design, Onix’s developers programmed the accommodations booking platform. The development team included:
front-end developer
back-end developer
DevOps engineer
quality assurance (QA) engineer
project manager
The apartment booking site development process comprised the following steps:
The coding of features and functionalities for travelers
Development of the administrator’s dashboard
Integration of third-party services for property booking, digital concierge, payments, and live chat
Pre-production release and testing
Production release
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[ Product scope ]
Some of the design highlights:
A homepage to impress
Kozystay’s homepage offers an intuitive search function for travelers to enter the desired check-in and check-out dates, guests, and preferred location.
It also features professional photos of recommended apartments, enticing travelers to explore the best options. Testimonials help build trust.
Enticing listing pages
Kozystay provides travelers with detailed information about each property so they can explore, evaluate, and reserve accommodations hassle-free.
Each listing page offers a comprehensive overview, including detailed descriptions, prices, photos, reviews, a map, and booking date selection. It took some time to select ready-made icons to visualize all possible amenities that can be available at apartments and houses or, for example, the distance to specific locations.
User account
On this page, travelers can:
easily update their personal information
customize notification preferences
review details of past reservations for reference
access a list of favorite properties for future stays
Trust-building pages
Color coding & typography
Onix’s designers suggested yellow as the primary color because it evokes the sun’s comforting warmth, the sweetness of honey, and a sense of cozy tranquility. They skillfully used shades of yellow and blue against soft beige backgrounds to highlight the website’s brand and functional elements, such as buttons. Blue, reminiscent of the sea surrounding Indonesia, complements and balances yellow, creating visual harmony.
The website’s font needed to look perfect on all screens and warmly welcome every visitor, capturing Kozystay’s essence. Onix’s designers selected Rota, a font with pleasantly rounded shapes and sharp corners, achieving a seamless blend of sophistication and comfort – a professional look infused with inviting warmth.
Logo and brand identity design
Our designers experimented with various symbols until the client approved a minimalistic design combining three elements:
Location Pin: Familiar to all who have searched locations on digital maps, its shape also references the domes of mosques.
Door: Representing the essence of accommodation, hospitality, and discovery.
Digit 1: Created by the opening door, it represents the commitment to providing first-rate apartments as a market leader.
Software development phases
User functionalities coding
Onix’s web developers programmed the following features and functionalities for the website users:
search function
search result pages
booking system
payments
data collection
live chat
Admin dashboard
For Kozystay’s administrators, Onix’s software developers implemented the abilities to:
manage the finances, occupancy, customer profiles, etc.
add promo codes
manage blogs and other content
chat with users
manage automatic emails sent to customers, e.g., immediately after a successful booking, before check-in, etc.
Third-party integrations
Onix’s programmers integrated the platform with several other third-party services:
a channel management system
a digital concierge
a payment system
live chat
Core technology stack we used
Booking platform
Python,
Django,
Vue.js
Designers’ instruments
Figma,
Adobe Illustrator,
Adobe Photoshop
Results and prospects
The project’s key results are:
﹂Onix’s web designers created a user-centric app experience and interfaces that balanced aesthetics and functionality on desktop and mobile screens alike﹂Onix’s brand designer developed a brand style guide and unique logo for Kozystay﹂Onix’s web developers built an online apartment booking platform that is easy to scale, maintain, and manage, and integrated it with the client’s preferred channel manager software
The MVP was launched in 2021.
The platform was working stably and required no bug-fixing or further development until Onix handed over the project documentation and code to Kozystay’s in-house IT team in 2024.
Kozystay plans further apartment reservation system development to accommodate business growth. For instance, when Onix was building the booking website, all properties were supplied from a single source. Now, external property owners or managers can also offer apartments or houses for booking. Kozystay also has plans to expand to neighboring regions: Malaysia, Thailand, or Vietnam.
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FAQs
What are some real-world case studies of apartment booking websites that significantly improved their conversion rate and online bookings?
Airbnb once tripled its conversion rate after redesigning its landing page and making it responsive and adaptive across different screens and devices. The team simplified the navigation menu, added a hero image of a beautiful destination, a catchy headline that communicates the UVP, and a clear CTA encouraging listings exploration.The Living Suites website achieved a 60% increase in booking revenue after changing the word ‘suites’ to ‘apartments’ and adding more details to listings. A contrasting, clear CTA and reducing the booking form fields from 23 to 12 helped improve conversion from website traffic: 25% to 30% of unique visitors performed a search, and 28% of those who searched ended up booking properties.
How did a successful apartment booking website optimize its UX, SEO, and booking funnel to attract more high-intent renters?
Booking.com achieved this by auto-generating hyper-relevant pages for every travel search. The website leverages its massive inventory and live availability, pricing, and review data, pulled via internal APIs, to provide a high-quality page for any search intent.There are other solutions that make Booking.com one of the most visited apartment booking websites. For example, thanks to the fast, mobile-friendly site architecture, Google can crawl and index millions of Booking.com’s listings. Each accommodation page uses structured URLs and schema, with the metadata updated from the API. Users who log in are shown recent searches and price alerts.An A∕B testing engine helps Booking.com identify better-converting page templates. Continuous experimentation with landing page layouts helps maximize bookings.
What are the key features and tactics highlighted in successful apartment booking website case studies for maximizing direct reservations?
Reduced friction in booking flows: fewer booking steps, clearer CTAs, clear price breakdowns, and shorter forms. Mobile-first optimization: responsive layouts, sticky “Book now” CTAs, and faster page load times High-trust visual content: professional photography and videos of properties, floor plans, amenity icons, walkthroughs, or virtual tours. Clear value messaging: explicit messaging (e.g, “No hidden fees” or “No OTA markup”), localized copy, tailored messaging for specific traffic segments, etc. Personalization and contextual relevance: dynamic content based on location, travel dates, length of stay, device type, etc.; tailored landing pages for SEO and paid traffic; urgency and scarcity indicators. Trust signals and social proof: guest reviews displayed near booking CTAs, host or brand credibility indicators, and clear cancellation and refund policies. Improved performance and reliability: faster page load and API response times, real-time availability and pricing, stable booking confirmation flows, etc. Continuous data-driven experimentation, primarily A∕B testing of CTA copy, hero images, calendar and pricing displays, etc.
Who can design and develop a custom online apartment booking website with integrated channel management and payments?
It’s a task for experienced travel and hospitality software developers. For example, Onix has 10+ years of user-oriented software development for international travel, tourism, and hospitality companies.For instance, we implemented multiple payment, anti-fraud, and automation solutions, as well as other integrations, for our long-standing client, Misterb&b. You are welcome to check the apartment booking website development case study. You can also see examples of Onix’s design work for 10Adventures , TravelBid , and TravelTail .
Which company can create a full-featured travel accommodation booking system with guest accounts and admin dashboard?
A software development agency specializing in online booking systems for travel businesses can do the job. As a travel tech company with 20+ years of experience, the latest technology, and diverse experts on board, Onix can create a custom travel booking system to your specifications from start to finish.