Thread

Hello, I am considering expressionengine as an upgrade from wordpress.

I would like to create a travel website similar to apple vacations website with hotels descriptions, ratings, bookings etc.

My questions is: will I be able to create such an extensive site that would be fairly easy to maintain and enter the required information by hand? Or should I be looking into custom PHP programming?

Thank you for any information in this matter.

Peter

Hey pentiger,

Thank you for contacting us!

ExpressionEngine is a blank slate when it comes to the content you will be using. So you will be able to build anything you can think of!

As far as building out those features, there are a few add-ons that might help! Ratings to name one! As far as allowing for easy information entry, ExpressionEngine’s Control Panel is a great way to do it! This will make handing off the project to the client a thing of beauty and ease.

Please let me know if there is anything else I can help with.

Cheers,

Thank you I will have to investigate further, I just found some tutorials on youtube. If will like the experience presented I will definitely get it.

You mention Bookings as well. Do you intend for the site to search hotels & flights, offer pricing, and allow users to book these items?

If so I think you may be expecting too much of a $300 CMS…

Hi, I understand that the booking engine is a separate module. I do have on already from a partner website. I found this site in the showcase section http://www.africantravel.com/ that does show the functionality i am looking for. However by looking at the tutorial on youtube I just cannot grasp the idea behinf this system, it’s very complicated.

I don’t see African Travel doing dynamic online quotes & booking - just a contact form that lets you choose dates & interests.  Unless I missed it?

EE is really flexible & powerful.  You don’t get those without some complexity.  However I would say it’s complicated to a point, and then it’s not.  Once you understand a few basic concepts it all kinda falls into place - the so-called “lightbulb moment”.

The basics:
Channels hold content. Think of them like database tables or spreadsheet pages. Rows and columns. Fields and entries. You choose the fields to match the type of content you are storing. Could be 2. Could be 100.

Templates generate pages by pulling content from channels and mixing it up with HTML & CSS, etc.  Templates can pull content from one channel or 100 as needed.

EE isn’t a “page-based” CMS.  EE doesn’t know or care about pages (for the most part).  Templates let you pull content and push it out in any shape you need - browser pages, mobile phone pages, etc.

Usually it takes building a site before it all starts to really make sense.  Even just a simple site can do it.

Thanks, I purchased your book, and I am reading it, now.
I didn’t mean that http://www.africantravel.com/  has a booking engine, I meant that I like the functionality it offers and that it would work for my project as well, the booking engine I already have from a partner website and I can just plug it in.
I am going back to the book as it’s a lot of information.
Thanks again for reply.

Glad to hear it - thanks again!

Thanks again for the help, Mike! pentiger, is there anything else we can help with?