Client work · Hospitality
Stephanie Villa
A private villa in Simou, Cyprus. The decision worth writing about is the feature we left out.
The client
One villa, privately owned, let directly. Not a portfolio, not an agency — a single property whose owner handles every enquiry personally.
That scale changes what the website is for. With one property there is no inventory to browse and no comparison to make. The site has one job: convince someone this is the place, then get them talking to the owner.
What they asked for
A premium showcase that does the property justice, with everything a guest asks before booking: what the villa is like, what it looks like, when it is free, what is nearby, and how to get in touch.
The decision that shaped it
Deliberately no booking engine
Every villa site is expected to have one, and for a single owner-let property it is the wrong tool. A booking engine takes a commission or a subscription, needs a payment and cancellation policy behind it, and has to be kept in sync or it will double-book a real family's holiday. All of that overhead exists to remove one message from a transaction that happens a few dozen times a year.
Instead the site shows an availability calendar and asks the guest to message directly — WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, phone or email. The owner keeps the conversation, the relationship, and the margin.
Cost: it is not instant. A guest who wants to book at midnight has to wait for a reply, and the owner has to actually answer. That trade only works because the owner does answer.
Photography first, copy second
A villa is chosen with the eyes. The gallery and the imagery carry the persuasion; the writing exists to answer the questions the photographs raise, not to describe what is already visible.
Cost: an image-heavy site is heavy, and most guests browse on a phone abroad. That constrains how much can be loaded before the first photograph appears.
What I delivered
- Dedicated pages for the villa, the gallery, availability, the local area, events and contact.
- A responsive image gallery, built for swiping.
- An availability calendar, so the first question is answered before it is asked.
- Direct enquiry through WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook, with a persistent WhatsApp button.
- A local-area section, because a villa in Simou is also selling the part of Cyprus it sits in.
- Smooth animation throughout, kept calm to match the property.
The result
Live at rentpaphosvillas.com.
It is the project I use when someone asks whether I will just build what they ask for. The answer is that I will tell them when a standard feature would cost them more than it returns — and then build whichever version they decide on.
Have a project in mind?
I take on client websites, web apps, and product builds across Cyprus and Greece.
Start a conversation