Create a Hotel Booking Form In 3 Steps

How to Build a Hotel Booking Form

In this guide, we outline the steps necessary to create and launch a hotel booking form using Five’s advanced form builder.

The process involves:

1. Creating the database

2. Designing the form

3. Deploying the form

We also cover securing the form with logins, authentication, and permissions, although this is an optional step.

What is a Hotel Booking Form?

A hotel booking form is an interface used to gather, store and manage reservation-related data.

These forms capture essential information such as guest details, room preferences, check-in/check-out dates, and payment information, which can be used for managing reservations and availability.

Hotel booking forms can range from simple web forms to more complex systems integrated with databases and analytics tools.

Key Components of a Hotel Booking Form

Web Forms: Online forms that guests fill out to submit reservation-related information.

Databases: Systems like MySQL, PostgreSQL, or MongoDB that store collected booking data in an organized manner. (Don’t worry if you’re not familiar—Five makes it easy.)

Data Security: Measures to protect sensitive guest data from unauthorized access and breaches.

Analytics Tools: Software that allows users to query the database, generate reports, and visualize booking trends.

Dashboards: Interactive interfaces that provide real-time insights into room availability, booking trends, and guest preferences.

Why a Traditional Form Builder Might Not Cut It

Hotel bookings involve managing multiple pieces of information, such as guest preferences, room availability, and pricing.

Standard form builders typically struggle to handle these complex data structures, making it difficult to create a comprehensive picture of each reservation.

Security and compliance are also major concerns in the hospitality industry. Booking forms contain sensitive personal and payment data, requiring security measures to protect this information and comply with regulations like GDPR.

Unfortunately, most off-the-shelf form builders lack the necessary security infrastructure to handle sensitive data safely and in compliance with these stringent rules.

Furthermore, hotel booking forms often require advanced calculations, such as determining room rates, availability, and discounts in real-time.

Many standard form builders have limited capabilities, lacking the ability to perform these complex calculations accurately.

Lastly, the need for advanced reporting and analytics is crucial in the hospitality industry. Hotels require comprehensive tools to analyze reservation data, track occupancy rates, and generate detailed reports.

Most traditional form builders offer only basic reporting features that fall short of these needs.

Building a Hotel Booking Form with Five

Creating a hotel booking form in Five offers significant advantages over traditional form builders, making it ideal for those who need secure, and analyzable booking data.

Unlike traditional form builders, which only store submitted data, Five allows you to directly connect your hotel booking form to a database.

This connection enables you to query your database and generate visual representations of your data, making it easier to identify trends, patterns, and occupancy rates.

Most traditional form builders require exporting data to third-party tools for analysis, adding extra steps and potential for errors.

While traditional form builders may suffice for very basic booking tasks, they often struggle with large datasets or high submission volumes.

Five’s database-connected solution, on the other hand, is designed to handle substantial amounts of booking data efficiently, maintaining performance as your hotel’s needs grow.

One of the standout features of Five is the ability to create login-protected forms. This ensures that only authorized users can access and manage booking data, enhancing the security of your reservation process.

Traditional form builders often lack these advanced security features, leaving your data vulnerable to unauthorized access.

In addition to its advanced data management and security features, Five allows you to build dashboards and generate detailed reports directly from your booking data.

You can create visual data representations such as charts and graphs, providing a clear overview of occupancy rates, guest preferences, and booking trends.

With Five, you can:

Quickly deploy your hotel booking form with a secure database.

Build a user-friendly interface that protects sensitive guest data with login authentication.

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Rapidly build and deploy your database today

Step 1: Database for Your Hotel Booking Form

To get started, sign up for free access to Five and create a new application by navigating to the Applications section and clicking the yellow plus button.

Create a New Application:

• Click the yellow plus button.
• Name your application (e.g., “Hotel Form”).

• Confirm by clicking the check icon in the upper right corner.
• Click on the blue Manage button to enter the development environment.

Create Database Tables:

• Go to Data > Table Wizard, a user-friendly interface for creating database tables.
• Name your table descriptively (e.g., “Bookings”).

Add fields to your table using the plus button, specifying appropriate data types:

• GuestName (Text): Stores the guest’s name.
• CheckInDate (Date): Records the check-in date.
• CheckOutDate (Date): Records the check-out date.
• RoomType (Text): Stores the type of room (e.g., Single, Double, Suite).

Remember to choose appropriate data and display types to ensure your data is stored and displayed correctly. If you are unsure—just ask ChatGPT.

Save Your Database Table:

After adding all relevant fields, save your table by clicking the check icon in the upper right corner. Your MySQL database table is now ready to store hotel booking data.

Side Note: While this may seem more advanced than traditional form builders, Five excels at building complete applications that allow you to expand your form into a fully functional system, capable of much more than basic form builders.

Step 2: Designing the Hotel Booking Form

Next, navigate to Visual > Form Wizard in Five to design your hotel booking form.

Select Data Source:

In the Form Wizard’s General section, select the “Bookings” table you created as the main data source. This links your backend (database) with your frontend (form).

Finalize the Form:

Click the check icon in the upper right corner to complete the form creation. Your form is now ready and connected to your database.

Add Form Submit/Cancel Buttons:

Next, navigate to Visual, select Forms, and scroll down. Under Complete Caption, you can add your submit button (you can change this to whatever you’d like, such as “Book Now”). You can also change the Cancel Caption. Remember to click the tick to save afterward.

Add Your URL:

Next, you need to add your URL. Navigate to Setup, then select URL and add an item. You must make this lowercase.

Also, select your form in the action field.

Step 3: Deploying the Hotel Booking Form

Deploy to Development:

Click the “Deploy to Development” button in the top right corner. This action opens your hotel booking form in a new browser tab, allowing you to preview it.

Once you run your application, your default URL will look something like this:
https://control-default-hotelform-ryan.5au.dev/?reloadSchema=f2358294-5f23-4f03-9471-a3f9c6336e75&inspect=false

Delete the URL section ?reloadSchema=f2358294-5f23-4f03-9471-a3f9c6336e75&inspect=false and replace it with the URL you named earlier. For example, based on this demo, the new URL would be https://control-default-hotelform-ryan.5au.dev/url/form

Enhance Your Form Further

To further expand your form view our library of articles:

1. Advanced Forms: Five’s Form Designer
2. Advanced Forms: Using Labels to Structure Your Form
3. Advanced Forms: Adding In-Field Help
4. Advanced Forms: Display Types
5. Advanced Forms: Custom Display Types

Securing Your Hotel Booking Form: Logins, Authentication, Permissions

Five offers several advanced features compared to traditional form builders, one of which is its ability to secure data through login protection, authentication, and user permissions.

Here’s how to add user roles and logins:

Turn your booking form into a multi-user application by automatically adding a login screen.

Create user roles with specific permissions. For example:

• Guest Role: Can submit bookings.
• Admin Role: Can review booking submissions and access the dashboard summarizing all reservations.

Explore More Security Features:

Use Five’s documentation for detailed instructions on securing your hotel booking form with authentication and permissions to ensure only authorized users can access or modify data.

To add a custom URL like hotelbookingform.com, you’ll need to sign up for a paid plan on Five.

Conclusion: Building a Hotel Booking Form

Building a hotel booking form with Five offers several advantages over traditional form builders.

The process involves three key steps: creating the database, designing the form, and deploying the web form. Five also provides security features, including login protection, authentication, and user permissions, ensuring that your booking form is secure and only accessible to authorized users.

With Five, you can directly connect your booking form to a database, enabling efficient data management and real-time analysis through custom charts and reports. This capability allows you to easily track reservations, analyze booking trends, and manage guest data effectively—tasks that are often cumbersome with traditional form builders.

By using Five, you can enhance your booking process, improve data security, and leverage analytical tools to gain insights, making it the superior choice for creating a comprehensive and efficient hotel booking form.

What Else You Can Do With Five

Here’s a more advanced form for property booking, this shows Five’s calculation capabilities.