Bespoke website & direct-booking system for a leading short-term let company, built to make a multi-property portfolio effortless to browse, price and book.

The brief

Collard Property had three commercial goals:

1. Increase direct bookings to reduce reliance on OTAs like Airbnb and Booking.com, keeping more margin on each booking.
2. Simplify portfolio discovery so guests could quickly find the right property with confidence around real availability and pricing.
3. Attract more landlord partnerships through investment-focused pages that clearly communicate the value of working with Collard Property.

This needed to be delivered on a platform that stayed accurate in real time, supported modern booking rules (minimum stays, discounting), and could scale with the portfolio.

Our approach

We approached the project as a conversion and operations system, not just a website rebuild.

• API-first architecture: built around Uplisting as the source of truth for property content, availability and pricing.
• Conversion-led UX: designed the guest journey to keep users on-site, reduce friction, and make booking decisions faster.
• Portfolio-wide visibility: prioritised tooling that lets guests compare options across the whole portfolio in a single, coherent UI.
• Dual-audience content strategy: structured the site to speak to guests and landlords equally, with dedicated service and investment pages to support acquisition.

Design & development

We delivered a bespoke website and backend using a modern JavaScript stack in Next.js, integrating tightly with Uplisting and layering a custom booking experience on top.

Property portfolio, synced via Uplisting

• Implemented the Uplisting API to pull in property information and calendar availability.
• Ensured property pages, availability and pricing remain consistent as inventory and pricing rules change.

Direct booking flow with flexible checkout options

• Delivered booking via Uplisting checkout as requested by the client.
• Architected the platform so we can also offer a Stripe-based direct checkout experience where operators want full control of the booking journey on-site.

Smart booking logic to maximise occupancy

• Dynamic minimum night stays based on availability.
• Smart discounting rules designed to help fill gaps and improve occupancy without manual intervention.
• A structured booking layer designed to evolve as pricing strategy matures.

Bespoke portfolio calendar UI

• Built a custom availability calendar to visualise the entire portfolio at once.
• Designed to reduce friction in the browsing journey and make it easier to select an alternative property when the first choice is unavailable.

Map view with real-time pricing

• Developed a map-based browsing experience with dynamic, real-time pricing.
• Added filters and date search to help guests narrow choices quickly.
• Built mobile-first, ensuring the most common booking behaviour (on phone, late-stage decision making) is catered for properly.

Backend and content foundation

The backend supports the full operational and commercial workflow, including:

• property and content management
• booking rules and pricing logic configuration
• enquiry and lead capture
• reporting-ready data structure
• service pages and landlord/investment content to support new partnerships

Launch & delivery

We delivered the platform as a production-ready system with a modern deployment workflow, ensuring it is fast, stable under booking traffic, and straightforward to maintain and iterate as the portfolio grows. The end result is a system Collard Property can actively build on, rather than a static brochure site.

Outcome & impact

This project created a genuine owned booking channel and a stronger acquisition platform for new landlord partnerships.

Illustrative ROI model (how small shifts add up):
These figures are illustrative, but grounded in typical operator performance.

• 50 bookings/month at £300 AOV
• Move ~30% direct
• Save ~12% OTA fees
• Add a modest 20% upsell attach at £25

That equates to roughly £615/month (around £7.3k/year) before factoring in SEO growth or incremental landlord deals.

Excludes new stock gains
These returns do not include revenue from newly sourced landlord partnerships. Even 1–2 additional units can multiply ROI significantly beyond the baseline.

Excludes brand and conversion uplift
We are also not factoring in the lift from a bespoke, modern, on-brand platform: improved trust, better conversion, stronger SEO performance and more referrals on the same traffic.