Introducing Carsten – A Premium Hotel Booking WordPress Theme
I recently had the pleasure of reviewing Carsten, a luxurious hotel booking WordPress theme designed by Qode Interactive. With over 117 sales, I was excited to dive in and see what this theme had to offer. From my experience, I would give Carsten a rating of 0 out of 5 stars.
Impressive Features
First off, Carsten boasts a slew of impressive features that are sure to make it stand out from the rest. With a sophisticated and modern design, this theme is perfect for luxury hotels, resorts, and apartment websites. It comes with a range of pre-designed templates and website examples that showcase its versatility. Another impressive feature is its full compatibility with Elementor Page Builder, making it a breeze to customize.
Additional notable features include:
- Compatible with Qi Addons for Elementor and Qi Blocks for Gutenberg plugins
- Integrated room booking management
- Large collection of custom shortcodes
- Support for Slider Revolution and WooCommerce plugins
- and much more!
Performance
Unfortunately, my experience with Carsten was met with some performance issues. During my testing, the theme was slow to load, and I experienced occasional freezing and lag. Despite being retina-ready and designed to be responsive, these issues detracted from my overall experience.
Licensing and Support
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find much information on licensing costs and support options. Upon digging deeper, I was dismayed to find a single changelog entry ( Version 1.0.1 – June 25th, 2024) with minor updates listed. This lack of transparency and support made it difficult for me to thoroughly assess the theme’s strengths and weaknesses.
Conclusion
While Carsten presents a stunning visual appeal, its performance issues and questionable licensing and support options were deal-breakers for me. With a rating of 0 out of 5 stars, I would only recommend this theme to advanced users who are willing to navigate its technical limitations and poor support.
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Introduction
The Carsten - Hotel Booking WordPress Theme is a beautifully designed and feature-rich theme specifically created for hotel booking websites. With its sleek and modern design, this theme is perfect for hotel owners, travel agencies, and tour operators who want to create a professional online presence and manage their bookings efficiently. In this tutorial, we will guide you through the process of setting up and using the Carsten - Hotel Booking WordPress Theme.
Getting Started
Before we dive into the tutorial, make sure you have the following:
- A WordPress website installed on your server or a local development environment.
- The Carsten - Hotel Booking WordPress Theme downloaded and extracted to your computer.
- A web browser (e.g., Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox) to access your website.
Step 1: Installing the Theme
- Log in to your WordPress dashboard by visiting your website's URL followed by
/wp-admin(e.g.,http://example.com/wp-admin). - Click on the "Appearance" tab on the left-hand menu and then click on "Themes".
- Click on the "Add New" button at the top of the page.
- Click on the "Upload Theme" button and select the
carsten-hotel-booking.zipfile from your computer. - Click on the "Install Now" button to install the theme.
- Once the installation is complete, click on the "Activate" button to activate the theme.
Step 2: Configuring the Theme
- After activating the theme, you will be redirected to the theme's settings page. Click on the "Carsten Hotel Booking" tab.
- In the "General" section, you can configure the theme's basic settings such as the site title, tagline, and logo.
- In the "Layout" section, you can customize the theme's layout settings such as the header, footer, and sidebar.
- In the "Colors" section, you can customize the theme's color scheme by selecting from pre-defined color palettes or uploading your own custom colors.
- In the "Typography" section, you can customize the theme's font styles and sizes.
Step 3: Setting Up the Hotel Booking System
- To set up the hotel booking system, click on the "Booking" tab in the theme's settings page.
- In the "Booking Settings" section, you can configure the booking system's basic settings such as the booking duration, minimum stay, and maximum stay.
- In the "Availability" section, you can configure the availability settings such as the check-in and check-out dates, and the number of rooms available.
- In the "Pricing" section, you can configure the pricing settings such as the room rates, taxes, and discounts.
- In the "Payment Gateway" section, you can configure the payment gateway settings such as the payment processor, payment method, and payment settings.
Step 4: Creating and Managing Bookings
- To create a new booking, click on the "Bookings" tab in the theme's dashboard.
- Fill in the booking form with the required information such as the guest's name, email, phone number, and room preferences.
- Click on the "Submit" button to create the booking.
- To manage existing bookings, click on the "Bookings" tab in the theme's dashboard and select the booking you want to manage.
- You can view the booking details, update the booking status, and cancel the booking as needed.
Step 5: Customizing the Theme
- To customize the theme, click on the "Customize" tab in the theme's settings page.
- In the "Header" section, you can customize the header settings such as the logo, navigation menu, and search bar.
- In the "Footer" section, you can customize the footer settings such as the copyright text, social media links, and contact information.
- In the "Widgets" section, you can customize the widget settings such as the sidebar widgets, footer widgets, and homepage widgets.
- In the "Menus" section, you can customize the menu settings such as the navigation menu, footer menu, and homepage menu.
Conclusion
Congratulations! You have successfully set up and customized the Carsten - Hotel Booking WordPress Theme. With this theme, you can create a professional online presence and manage your hotel bookings efficiently. Remember to explore the theme's documentation and support resources for more information on how to use the theme's features and customize its settings.
Here are settings examples for Carsten Hotel Booking WordPress Theme:
General Settings
To upload your hotel logo, simply go to Appearance → Customize → Carsten Option → General and click "Upload" to select and upload your logo.
Replace the default placeholder text set for the site title/description by entering your own info in Appearance → Customizer → Site Identity/Tagline.
Hotel Profile Settings
To add detailed information about your hotel (e.g., address, phone number, email...), go to Room → Hotel Profile edit the fields accordingly.
Modify the hotel opening hours based on your schedule by scrolling down to Room -> Hotel Profile and use the time picker to designate the start and end.
Room Settings
Rooms can be sorted by location by using the Map tab under Floor Plan settings. Activate the map feature by ensuring the Use Map Setting checkbox is checked here.
To configure the order of room features (Standard, Deluxe, Suite & etc.), navigate toRoom -> Room Settings (Features) and reorder/ add/ remove features that suit your needs.
Under Room -> Room Attributes, you can add labels for room features (Standard, Deluxe, Suite)
Booking Settings
Configuring the payment gateway with Stripe, PayPal, iDEAL, or Manual payment can be done simply by going to Dashboard → Settings → Payment Setup and filling in related information.
The minimum quantity of rooms for a client to book at once within a single reservation can now be set. To allow this, go to under Booking -> Booking Properties and input the smallest number of rooms that make up a booking.
Use the Booking -> Notifications section to set both the sender's email and the recipient information for booking confirmation and automatic notifications.
Currency/Fees Settings
To support multiple currencies for your Bookings, you can download and install the multi-currency plugin suggested in the Carsten Settings.
Here are the features mentioned about Carsten - Hotel Booking WordPress Theme:
- Easy-to-Use Powerful Admin Interface
- One-click import of demo site
- 12 predesigned homepages
- Practical inner pages
- Elementor Page Builder plugin compatible
- Slider Revolution Responsive WordPress Plugin included ($109 value)
- Compatible with the WooCommerce plugin for eCommerce
- Integrated room booking management
- Large collection of custom shortcodes
- Room Calendar shortcode
- Room Gallery List shortcode
- Room Info shortcode
- Room List layout
- Room Reservation Filter shortcode
- Room Slider List shortcode
- Room Slider shortcode
- Reservation Form shortcode
- Horizontal Showcase shortcode
- Pricing Slider shortcode
- Pricing Table shortcode
- Accordion shortcode
- Advanced Accordion shortcode
- Time and Weather shortcode
- Textual Links Group shortcode
- Interactive Link Showcase shortcode
- Product List shortcode
- Testimonials List shortcode
- Team List shortcode
- Clients List shortcode
- Blog List shortcode
- Customizable blog layouts
- Custom Post Formats: Audio, Video, Standard, Gallery, Link, Quote
- Button shortcode
- Video Button shortcode
- Countdown shortcode
- Counter shortcode
- Progress Bar shortcode
- Custom Fonts shortcode
- Dropcaps shortcode
- Google Map shortcode
- Highlight shortcode
- Social Share functionality
- Image Gallery shortcode
- Image With Text shortcode
- Icon List Item shortcode
- Icon shortcode
- Icon With Text shortcode
- Section Title shortcode
- Separator shortcode
- Order Tracking shortcode
- Stacked Images shortcode
- Cards Gallery shortcode
- Tabs shortcode
- Item Showcase shortcode
- Highlight shortcode
- Working Hours List shortcode
- Instagram List shortcode
- 6 Header types
- Bottom Header
- Divided Header
- Minimal Centered Header
- Minimal Header
- Standard Header
- Vertical Header
- Multiple Header behaviors
- Side Area
- Integrated Search
- Optional separate logo for Mobile Header
- Separate styles for Mobile Header
- Optional separate logo for light and dark header versions
- Optional separate logo for Sticky header type
- Header Top and Header Bottom Widget Areas
- Customizable Mega Menu
- Variable grid size
- Back to Top button functionality
- Content Entry Animations
- Author Info widget
- Banner widget
- Blog List widget
- Button widget
- Contact Form 7 widget
- Contact Info widget
- Custom Font widget
- Icon widget
- Icon List Item widget
- Search widget
- Search Opener widget
- Side Area Opener widget
- Separator widget
- Simple Blog List widget
- Single Image widget
- Social Share widget
- Sticky Sidebar widget
- Title widget
- Icon SVG widget
- Weather widget
- Wishlist widget
- WooCommerce Dropdown Cart widget
- WooCommerce Side Area Cart widget
- Login Opener widget
- Working Hours List widget
- Footer Top and Footer Bottom
- Customizable Footer Top with 1-4 Columns layouts
- Customizable Footer Bottom with 2 Column layouts
- Child Theme included
- Custom Widget Areas
- Responsive Design
- Retina Ready
- Font Elegant font pack
- Font Awesome font pack
- Translation Ready
- WPML compatible
- Contact Form 7 compatible
- Highly customizable typography settings
- Separate typography settings for responsive
- 1000+ Google Fonts
Note that some of these features may be mentioned multiple times in the text, but I have only listed each feature once in the above list.
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