A website for your holiday rental: pages and languages
If your holiday home, apartment or guesthouse is already listed on one or two booking platforms, a website of your own can feel like extra work for no extra bookings. It isn't meant to replace the platforms. It's the place guests find when they search for you by name, the page you send to people who stayed last year, and the one spot where the photos, the words and the story are entirely yours. Here is what to put on it, and how to decide which languages it needs.
Why your own site still matters
A platform listing is built to compare you with the place next door. Your own site does different jobs:
- Returning guests. People who loved their week with you search for the house name, or for "apartment near the harbour in" plus your village. They should land on you, not on a list of alternatives.
- Searches for your area. People planning a trip read about beaches, walks, markets and restaurants long before they compare prices. A page about your area can be the first thing they find.
- Your own photos and story. On your site you can explain why you renovated the old barn, show the view at different times of day, and say who you are.
Choose languages from your guests, not your map
The easy mistake is translating into the languages you happen to speak. Look at your booking history instead: most platforms show where guests come from. Count the last few seasons; usually two or three languages do most of the work.
Regional patterns help you check your own numbers. The Canary Islands welcomed a record 15.7 million foreign visitors in 2025, with the UK and Germany as their biggest markets (INE and ISTAC). In Croatia, Germans account for about a quarter of foreign tourist nights (Croatian Bureau of Statistics, 2025). If your guests look like that, English and German are not optional extras.
Language affects whether people book at all: 76% of online shoppers prefer to buy with information in their own language, and 40% never buy from websites in other languages (CSA Research, 2020). For a holiday rental, the parts that matter most in the guest's language are the practical ones: directions, check-in, house rules.
- Give each language its own page address, so search engines can index each version.
- Use hreflang so search engines know which page is in which language.
- Machine translation is a good first draft, but have someone who speaks the language read the house rules and directions.
The pages you need
Most rental sites need six pages:
- The property. Rooms, beds, bathrooms, what the kitchen has, heating or air conditioning, Wi-Fi, parking, accessibility. Be precise; guests read this to avoid surprises.
- Photos. Every room, the outside, the view, the street, and the way in.
- Location and directions. From the airport, the ferry or the motorway exit, with the last few hundred metres described in words. Mention where to park and whether the road is narrow.
- House rules. Check-in and check-out times, pets, smoking, noise, rubbish and recycling. Written plainly, in every language you offer.
- Local guide. Beaches, walks, shops, restaurants, what's open out of season.
- Contact or enquiry. A form for questions about dates, longer stays or groups, plus a phone number or email.
Link to the booking pages you already use
You don't need your own booking system to take bookings. Add clear "Book on ..." links to your listings on the property page and in the menu, and say which platforms you're on. Guests who want to ask something first can use your enquiry form.
Keep prices and availability consistent
The quickest way to lose trust is a website that says something different from the listing. If you show prices on your site, show ranges or "from" prices and say that the booking page has the final price for each date. Don't copy a calendar by hand into your site; link to where availability is kept up to date. When you change a rule, a fee or a check-in time, change it in every language on the same day.
Local guide posts
A short post every few weeks is the easiest way to give people a reason to find you: the best beach when the wind is from the north, the Saturday market, a walk from the door, where to eat when everything else is closed in November. Write them for your guests' questions, in their languages.
How FolioPress fits
FolioPress is a website builder with translation built in. You write a page once, the AI drafts the other languages, and nothing is published until you approve it. Each language gets its own translated address, hreflang and a language switcher. You get photo galleries, a blog with scheduled posts for your local guide, a contact form on any page, site search and visitor statistics without cookies, on your own domain, hosted in the EU.
To be clear: FolioPress has no booking engine, no online payments and no property feeds. It's your site; your bookings stay on the platforms you already use, with links from your pages. Bilingual is €12/month for two languages, Multilingual €19/month for all 56, and you can try it free for 30 days.