Do you need to create multiple language versions of your property rental WordPress website built with the MotoPress Hotel Booking plugin? Since our booking plugin is officially compatible with WPML, one of the most popular WordPress multilngual plugins, in this post we’ll show that it’s really easy to translate your website!
First up, why WPML? This is one of the widely recognized choices on the market, a regularly being improved WordPress translation plugin with a highly intuitive interface. Moreover, Hotel Booking compatibility was carefully checked by WPML guys, so you may safely use it on your site.
The most pleasant thing, the future updates of WPML plugin will be focused on making the editor more advanced – with your own translation glossary and memory, spell checker, real-time editor, taxonomy slug translation and even Gutenberg integration (for those unfamiliar, a new block based WordPress core editor).
To show you how the integration works in action, we’ve created a test German version for the Villagio property rental WordPress theme – you may check out the language switcher in the theme header.
So, how do you use WPML with the Hotel Booking plugin? To build a multilingual WordPress website, you’ll need:
- a WordPress theme
- MotoPress Hotel Booking plugin
- WPML plugin with optional addons
To get started, install and activate WPML plugin. If you haven’t installed MotoPress Hotel Booking yet, don’t forget to do that as well. Also, make sure to add all content via the Hotel Booking plugin before translating it into any language. This way, you’ll simplify your work with translations and won’t need to go back and forth all the time.
Languages
Firstly, add the languages you are going to translate the plugin to: go to WPML > Languages > Add Language. We’ve chosen German to replicate a demo of Villagio theme mentioned a while back:
There are lots of settings you can apply according to your needs:
- Set a default language
- Language URL format
- Language switcher options (the order of languages and how to handle languages without translation)
- Managing widget areas where you can add the language switcher, etc.
Translating custom taxonomies
The order of adding your translation is similar to the one of setting up the MotoPress Hotel Booking plugin: start with taxonomy. It will help you later add translation for accommodations with all amenities and services quicker and easier.
One of the ways to do it is via WPML > Taxonomy translation. From the drop-down menu choose the needed type of Hotel Booking taxonomy and then add translation of the already existing content. In the same section, you can translate Hotel Booking categories, tags, accommodation categories and more.
Also, you may translate the taxonomy via Hotel Booking plugin. For example, go to Accommodation > Amenities > edit amenity.
Speaking from our own experience, it’s easier to edit taxonomy via WPML as you have all items on one screen. That significantly saves your time on editing! One more plus of editing with WPML is that you can jump quickly to only untranslated items.
Translating posts, pages and custom post types
First of all, add services and bed types. Services can be easily edited as standard posts:
As for bed types, go to Accommodation > Settings and scroll down to bed types > add new > add your translation to the list of your bed types listed in the source language. Firstly, we put the English version and as another list of bed types – a German translation.
As for Seasons, there is no need to add translations to this menu as these are just backend settings.
Now you are ready to add accommodation types! Once all the taxonomy and posts are translated, you are free to translate your rentals – add description in a target language and images, then simply choose items from the previously translated taxonomy (amenities, categories, tags, services, bed types).
Now it’s time to translate your rates. For this, go to Rates > Edit > select the accommodation type and translate rate descriptions. There is no need to edit prices, so WPML will offer you to translate a rate description only.
You’ll also need to translate custom texts (if any) of the system pages (created with shortcodes). Go to Pages > search results, search availability, etc. and translate your custom texts. System plugin texts are already translated into 14 languages. You may also choose where to add the language switcher (to any widgetized area of your WordPress theme) in WPML settings.
That’s it! With WPML, you can also go ahead and translate the rest of the pages of your website – pages, posts, custom post types and media. If you face any issues, feel free to report it as we’re keeping an eye on all compatibility bugs.
Bottom line
Do you think it was a hard task? Absolutely not. Taking into account all future improvements of the WPML plugin, the experience of making your website multilingual is going to be even smoother. So, if you are thinking about reaching a wider audience today or tomorrow and attracting more international travelers to your lodging, this is just the right time to start with a multilingual website.
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The post How to Translate MotoPress Hotel Booking Plugin with WPML appeared first on MotoPress.