How to Build a Website Like Expedia: Development Steps & Cost

Creating a website like Expedia may seem complex and expensive. However, WordPress makes the process much easier.

With the right theme, plugins, payment gateways, and travel APIs, you can create a complete travel booking website. Users can search, compare, and book hotels, flights, tours, rental cars, or travel packages from one place.

In this guide, we will explain how to build a website like Expedia using WordPress. We will cover the required features, useful themes and plugins, travel API integrations, payment setup, development steps, estimated cost, and growth strategies.

Expedia Business Model

Expedia operates as an online travel agency and travel marketplace. It connects travelers with hotels, airlines, car rental companies, cruise providers, and activity operators.

Travelers use the platform to search, compare, and book different travel services. Meanwhile, suppliers gain access to Expedia’s large customer base.

Expedia mainly earns revenue through the following business models:

1. Merchant Model

Under the merchant model, Expedia collects the traveller’s payment during booking. It later pays the supplier based on the agreed rate.

Expedia earns revenue from the difference between the customer’s payment and the supplier’s contracted amount. It may also collect service fees on selected bookings.

For participating hotels, Expedia calls this payment option Expedia Collect.

2. Agency Model

Under the agency model, the traveler usually pays the hotel or supplier directly. Expedia then receives a commission after the customer completes the booking.

This model reduces the need for Expedia to hold the full booking payment. Expedia refers to its hotel agency option as Hotel Collect.

Some participating hotels let travelers choose between paying Expedia during booking or paying the property later.

3. Advertising and Media Model

Expedia also earns money by selling advertising across its travel platforms.

Hotels, airlines, tourism boards, and other travel companies can pay for greater visibility. This may include promoted listings, display advertisements, and sponsored search placements.

Expedia Group also earns advertising revenue through trivago and Expedia Group Media Solutions.

4. B2B Partnership Model

Expedia provides travel inventory and booking technology to other businesses.

Travel agencies, airlines, loyalty programs, and financial companies can access Expedia’s accommodation inventory through business-to-business solutions.

These partners may display Expedia-powered travel options on their own websites. Expedia then earns revenue through commissions, booking margins, or partnership agreements.

5. Package and Add-On Revenue

Expedia lets travelers combine hotels, flights, cars, and activities into one trip.

Travel packages can increase the total booking value. Expedia may also earn revenue from travel insurance, car rentals, cruises, and activities.

In 2025, Expedia Group generated $119.59 billion in gross bookings and $14.73 billion in revenue. It also recorded 415.4 million booked room nights. Both gross bookings and revenue increased by 8% from 2024.

Essential Features of a Website Like Expedia

1. Multi-Service Search

Create a central search system for tours, hotels, activities, transfers, or other services you provide. The form should collect relevant details, such as destination, travel dates, guest numbers, and service type.

2. Smart Filters and Map-Based Results

Let travelers narrow results by price, rating, duration, location, amenities, availability, or cancellation policy. You can also add a map to help users compare properties and activities across different areas.

3. Live Availability and Accurate Pricing

Display available dates, remaining spaces, room options, and current prices. External inventory requires an API that can retrieve rates and availability before confirming the booking. Expedia’s Rapid Lodging API provides property, rate, region, and booking-path data.

4. Detailed Travel Listing Pages

Each listing should include clear descriptions, images, prices, dates, policies, amenities, and booking conditions. Tour pages should also show itineraries, inclusions, exclusions, meeting points, and group details.

5. Package and Add-On Booking

Allow travelers to combine related services within one booking. For example, you can bundle a tour with accommodation, airport transfers, meals, equipment, or extra activities. Expedia also lets users combine flights, stays, and car rentals into vacation packages.

6. Clear Booking and Checkout Process

Keep the booking journey short and easy to follow. Travelers should select their dates, enter personal details, review all charges, choose a payment method, and confirm the booking without unnecessary steps.

7. Secure and Flexible Payments

Support trusted payment gateways that match your target customers. You may also need deposits, installment payments, local payment methods, and different currencies for international bookings. WP Travel Pro supports partial payments and conditional payment options for WordPress travel websites.

8. Customer Account and Trip Dashboard

Give travelers a private dashboard where they can view bookings, payment details, saved trips, and account information. WP Travel provides a front-end customer dashboard for managing bookings without entering the WordPress admin area.

9. Booking Changes, Cancellations, and Refunds

Your website should explain cancellation terms before payment. It should also record booking changes, cancellation dates, fees, refund amounts, and request status. Expedia’s Rapid tools can support self-service booking changes for eligible lodging reservations.

10. Reviews and Ratings

Allow verified customers to review a trip, hotel, activity, or service after completion. Reviews help other travelers assess service quality, value, location, and overall experience. Expedia’s partner tools also allow properties to collect and respond to post-stay reviews.

11. Deals and Loyalty Features

Use coupons, seasonal discounts, group pricing, and member-only rates to encourage bookings. Expedia currently promotes member prices across selected stays, activities, cars, cruises, flights, and packages.

12. Supplier Management Dashboard

A marketplace needs a separate dashboard for hotels, tour operators, or other travel suppliers. Partners should be able to update listings, rates, availability, reservations, and promotions. Expedia uses Partner Central for these tasks.

13. Admin Management System

Your administrators need one place to control trips, bookings, customers, payments, refunds, coupons, reviews, and suppliers. Use separate user roles to protect sensitive customer and payment information.

14. Reports and Performance Analytics

Track revenue, bookings, popular destinations, failed searches, cancellations, and average booking value. These reports help you improve your packages, pricing, marketing, and website experience.

15. Travel API Integrations

External APIs connect your website with inventory from hotels, activity providers, airlines, or car rental companies. Expedia’s Rapid APIs support lodging and activity booking flows, including discovery, availability, price checks, and reservations.

16. Mobile-Friendly Design

Optimize search forms, filters, calendars, listing pages, and checkout for mobile devices. Travelers should be able to complete a booking without zooming, scrolling sideways, or entering unnecessary information.

17. Automated Booking Notifications

Send automatic emails or messages after bookings, payments, cancellations, refunds, and schedule changes. Each notification should include the booking reference, payment status, trip information, and support contact.

18. Customer Support

Provide clear support through email, phone, contact forms, live chat, or a help center. Travel customers may need urgent help with failed payments, itinerary changes, cancellations, or supplier issues.

How to Build Your Travel Website Like Expedia?

Building a website like Expedia with WordPress involves setting up a professional travel website, adding a booking system, creating destination and tour pages, integrating secure payment methods, and optimizing the site for search engines. By following a structured approach and using the right WordPress theme and plugins, you can create a user-friendly travel booking website that offers an experience similar to Expedia.

Step 1: Set Up Your WordPress Website

The first step is to create a solid foundation for your travel website. Start by selecting a domain name that reflects your travel brand and is easy for customers to remember. Next, choose a reliable WordPress hosting provider that offers fast performance, SSL certificates, automatic backups, and excellent uptime.

After your hosting account is ready, install WordPress and complete the basic configuration. Update your website title, set your preferred permalink structure, enable HTTPS, and configure your timezone. These simple settings improve both user experience and search engine optimization from the beginning.

Step 2: Choose a Professional Travel WordPress Theme

Your website’s design plays a major role in attracting visitors and encouraging bookings. Choose a responsive WordPress theme designed for travel websites or one that can be easily customized to showcase destinations, tours, and booking options.

Look for a theme that includes:

• Mobile-responsive design
• Fast loading speed
• Easy customization
• Elementor or Gutenberg compatibility
• WooCommerce compatibility (if needed)
• Clean navigation

For installing a theme, go to your WordPress dashboard, then Appearance>> Theme.

Then, press the add new button.

Search for tourable or other themes in the search box.

Finally, install and activate the theme to create a website like Expedia.

Once installed, customize your branding by adding your logo, choosing colors, selecting typography, and creating a clear navigation menu. A clean and modern design helps visitors quickly find the travel information they’re looking for.

Step 3: Install Essential WordPress Plugins

WordPress plugins add the functionality needed to manage and grow your travel website.

Install plugins for:

• SEO optimization
• Website caching and performance
• Security protection
• Automatic backups
• Contact forms
• Image optimization

These tools improve your website’s speed, security, search visibility, and overall user experience. Avoid installing unnecessary plugins, as too many can slow down your website and create maintenance issues.

Step 4: Add Travel Booking Features

A booking system is the core of any travel website. Visitors should be able to browse available trips, view detailed itineraries, choose travel dates, and complete bookings without unnecessary steps.

WP Travel allows you to create and manage travel packages directly from your WordPress dashboard.

Add new plugin >>WP Travel>> and activate it.

For that, press begin installing plugins.

Choose the install for bulk option and apply it for installation.

Now, choose your required plugins and select activate for bulk action. Then click on the apply button.

For further customization, press the Customize your site button.

After that, customize the following section of your site.

Update the booking, coupon, trip extras, inquiries, downloads, and custom filters of your site.

Again, make changes in the following areas as well. After that, press the save settings.

Add all information on the trip section.

Now, you will get a great site that we have shown above.

For more information, check the documentation of WP Travel.

With WP Travel, you can add:

• Tour packages
• Trip itineraries
• Multiple pricing options
• Travel dates
• Group sizes
• Booking forms
• Trip galleries
• Included and excluded services
• Trip categories
• Trip duration

You can organize trips into categories such as adventure tours, trekking, family vacations, cultural experiences, wildlife tours, or honeymoon packages, making it easier for visitors to browse your offerings.

A simple booking workflow helps improve the overall user experience while making trip management easier for website administrators.

Step 5: Create the Essential Pages

A well-structured travel website should include pages that help visitors explore destinations, learn about your services, and complete bookings with confidence.

Your website should include pages such as:

• Home
• Destinations
• Tours
• Travel Packages
• Travel Guides
• About Us
• Contact
• FAQ
• Privacy Policy
• Terms & Conditions

For destination pages, include valuable information such as top attractions, best time to visit, travel tips, maps, itineraries, and frequently asked questions. These pages improve both the user experience and your website’s visibility in search engines.

Step 6: Design Your Homepage Like Expedia

Your homepage should immediately help visitors discover travel opportunities and encourage them to start exploring.

Include sections such as:

• Hero banner
• Search section
• Featured destinations
• Popular trips
• Special offers
• Customer testimonials
• Travel inspiration
• Newsletter signup
• Clear call-to-action buttons

Keep the layout clean and organized so visitors can quickly navigate your travel services and begin the booking process.

Step 7: Configure Payments and Improve User Experience

Once your booking system is ready, configure secure payment options so customers can complete reservations online.

To improve usability, consider adding features such as:

• Search filters
• Price sorting
• Customer reviews
• Ratings
• User accounts
• Booking history
• Wishlists
• Interactive maps
• Mobile-friendly navigation

Reducing the number of steps required to complete a booking helps increase conversions and creates a better overall experience for your customers.

Step 8: Optimize Your Travel Website for SEO

SEO helps potential travelers discover your website through search engines.

Optimize every page by writing descriptive titles, compelling meta descriptions, and clear headings. Publish destination guides, travel tips, and helpful articles that answer common traveler questions.

You should also:

• Optimize images
• Build internal links
• Add schema markup
• Improve Core Web Vitals
• Create destination-focused content
• Target relevant travel keywords

Publishing helpful content consistently increases your chances of attracting organic traffic and building topical authority within your travel niche.

Step 9: Add Analytics and Marketing Tools

After your website is live, you’ll want to measure its performance and continue growing your audience.

Connect tools such as:

• Google Analytics
• Google Search Console
• Email marketing platform
• Social media sharing
• Contact forms
• Newsletter signup

These tools help you understand visitor behavior, measure marketing performance, and identify opportunities to improve conversions and engagement.

Step 10: Test, Launch, and Maintain Your Website

Before launching your travel website, carefully test every important feature.

Review your:

• Booking process
• Payment gateway
• Contact forms
• Navigation
• Mobile responsiveness
• Website speed
• Internal links
• Images

Once everything is working correctly, launch your website and submit your sitemap to Google Search Console for indexing.

Building a travel website doesn’t end after launch. Continue updating WordPress, themes, and plugins, publish fresh travel content, monitor your SEO performance, and improve the booking experience based on visitor feedback. Regular maintenance helps keep your website secure, fast, and competitive.

How Much Does It Cost to Create a Website Like Expedia?

Creating a website like Expedia can cost between $40,000 and $500,000 or more. However, the final cost depends on the project’s size, features, development method, and travel inventory.

Cost Factor	Estimated Cost	Payment Type
Domain Name	$10–$30	Per year
Web Hosting	$100–$1,200	Per year
WordPress Theme	$0–$100	Free or one-time
Booking Plugin	$0–$300	Per year
Payment Gateway Setup	$0–$1,000	One-time
Website Design and Customization	$500–$5,000	One-time
Custom Development	$1,000–$20,000+	One-time
SEO and Content Setup	$500–$5,000	One-time
Website Maintenance	$300–$3,000	Per year

You may also read: How to Create a Website Like Airbnb?

Conclusion

Building a website like Expedia with WordPress is a practical way to enter the online travel booking market without developing an entire platform from the ground up. With the right theme, booking system, payment options, and travel-focused features, you can create a professional website for selling tours, activities, and holiday packages.

WP Travel can simplify the booking process by helping you manage trip details, itineraries, pricing, traveler information, payments, and reservations from one place. This reduces the amount of custom development required and makes it easier to provide customers with a smooth booking experience.

As your travel business grows, you can add more destinations, packages, payment options, and advanced booking features. WP Travel gives you a strong foundation for building and expanding an Expedia-inspired WordPress website. Start creating your travel booking platform with WP Travel Pro today.

FAQs

1. How does an Expedial ike website make money?

An Expedia-like website can earn through booking commissions, price markups, service fees, advertising, and affiliate partnerships. It may also generate revenue from insurance, transfers, activities, and other travel add-ons.

2. How long does it take to create a website like Expedia?

A focused WordPress travel website may take around two to twelve weeks. A custom OTA with live inventory, supplier dashboards, and complex APIs may take six to eighteen months or longer.

3. Do I need coding skills to build an Expedia-like website? 

No, you can create the basic website without advanced coding skills. A WordPress theme and WP Travel can handle trip pages, bookings, prices, and payment functions.