Soho Hotel WP Theme or Booklium Theme? Which Is Better for WordPress Hotel Site?
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Your website is more than just a place to showcase rooms – it’s the first impression guests have of your hotel. A well-designed theme can help you attract guests and boost direct reservations. Soho hotel WP theme and Booklium are two popular options, but which one is the better fit for your business? In this comparison, we’ll analyze their key features, pricing, and flexibility!
First of all, here is a quick overview of the compared themes:
| Name | Author | Release Year | Compared Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Soho | quitenicestuff | 2013 | 4.2.0 |
| Booklium | MotoPress | 2019 | 1.5.0 |
Now, let’s see which theme deserves a spot on your website!
Soho vs Booklium: The Ultimate Showdown
Full of comparison tables, this article is divided into sections to help you define the winner in this battle. Let’s get it started!
Quick Overview
We’ll begin with summaries and quick links before diving into the detailed comparison!
What is Booklium?
Booklium is a multipurpose WordPress theme for different types of vacation rental websites. Built with the WordPress block editor and Getwid blocks, it equips your website with ready-to-go designs and a powerful booking engine. With Booklium, you can create a fully functional website for your property with payments, notifications, booking synchronization, and more features.
What is Soho hotel WP theme?
Soho combines modern design with built-in booking functionality. This theme comes with a collection of demos and inner pages. It also adds booking features to your website, such as a booking calendar, multiple pricing options, management tools, etc. Adjusting its design via a drag-and-drop page interface requires no coding skills.
Pre-Made Demos
Are you looking for a hotel WordPress theme packed with a range of templates for various property types? Both themes include pre-built demos for multiple purposes. Let’s compare them!
| Feature | Soho Hotel WP theme | Booklium |
|---|---|---|
| Number of Demos | 8 | 5 |
| Niches | Standard Hotel, Apartment (2), Bed & Breakfast, Town Villa, City Hotel, Beach Resort, Boutique Villa | Multiple Villas, Single Vacation Rental, Hostel, Apartment, Bed & Breakfast |
| Niche-Specific Page Templates | Yes | Yes |
As the table shows, Soho offers more demos that you can import and set up immediately. Booklium features flexible demos for single or multiple properties.
Design and Customization Options
Which page builder do you prefer to customize your WordPress hotel theme? In the table below, we’ve highlighted the capabilities of Booklium and Soho themes:
| Feature | Soho Hotel WP theme | Booklium |
|---|---|---|
| Page Builder | WPBakery | Gutenberg |
| Custom Blocks/Widgets | No | Yes (Getwid) |
| Color & Font Options | Advanced | Advanced |
- Both themes allow you to edit their designs via the drag-and-drop page builders. While Booklium is built with the native WordPress block editor, Soho supports a popular WPbakery builder.
- It’s worth noting that Booklium is packed with a collection of 35+ custom WordPress blocks and templates by Getwid. This addon extends your content editing capabilities and lets you use AI writing tools.
Booking System Features
The Soho hotel WordPress theme includes a booking system out of the box. Booklium is powered by the WordPress Hotel Booking plugin. What features do they provide for your vacation rental website?
| Feature | Soho Hotel WP theme | Booklium |
|---|---|---|
| Booking System | Built-in | MotoPress Hotel Booking |
| Availability Calendar | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-room booking | Yes | Yes |
| Multiple Properties | Yes | Yes |
| Synchronization with OTAs | Yes | Yes |
| Email notifications | Yes | Yes |
| Online Payments | Yes | Yes |
| Guest categories | Yes | Yes |
| Private and dorm rooms | Yes | No |
| User accounts | Yes | Yes |
| CSV Export | No | Yes |
| Extra services | Yes | Yes |
| Booking management | Dashboard calendar | Dashboard Calendar; Hotel Booking Mobile App |
| Booking rules | Yes | Yes |
| Booking confirmation | Manual and automatic | Manual and automatic |
| Linked accommodation | No | Yes |
| Reviews | No | Yes ($49) |
| Checkout fields | No | Yes ($79) |
| Multi-currency | Yes | Yes ($69) |
| PDF Invoices | No | Yes ($89) |
Let’s sum up some points:
1. The compared booking systems support:
- Multiple properties;
- Responsive availability calendars;
- Flexible booking rules;
- Online payments;
- Automated email notifications;
- Booking management on the dashboard;
- Synchronization with OTAs such as Booking.com, Airbnb, etc.
2. With a reservation system by Soho, you can also benefit from:
- Specific room types;
- More guest categories;
- Multi-currency settings.
3. Compared to Soho, Hotel Booking by MotoPress included in Booklium is prominent for:
- CSV reports;
- Linked accommodation options;
- A set of extra features (invoices, reviews, checkout fields, etc.) enabled by the Hotel Booking extensions;
- Hotel Booking mobile application.
Pricing Options and Payment Processing
Which payment opinions do the visitors of your WordPress webhotel choose? Let’s see under the hood of payment processing of the compared themes!
| Feature | Soho | Booklium |
|---|---|---|
| Built-in gateways | No | PayPal, Stripe, Beanstream/Bambora, Braintree, and 2Checkout |
| WooCommerce | Yes | Yes ($99) |
| Dynamic Pricing | Yes | Yes |
| Seasonal Pricing | Yes | Yes |
| Early/Late pricing | Yes | Yes (early-bird and last-minute discounts) |
| Taxes & fees | Yes | Yes |
| Discount coupons | Yes | Yes |
| Weekly/Monthly pricing | Yes | No |
| Day-of-week price | Yes | No |
| Security Deposit | Yes | No |
| Deposit payments | No | Yes |
- As seen from the table above, the Soho theme has more pricing options within its reservation system. With Booklium, you can boost dynamic pricing using the PriceLabs extension.
- Booklium includes more-built payment gateways while Soho relies on WooCommerce for online payments.
Speed and Performance
Why should a hotel WordPress theme perform well when it comes to page loading speed?
- Guests expect a smooth and responsive browsing experience.
- If your website loads quickly, visitors are more likely to complete their reservations instead of bouncing to a competitor’s site.
- Page loading speed is one of the crucial factors for ranking in search engine results.
We ran several tests using PageSpeed Insights by Google to measure the average demo loading speed of both themes:
| Theme | Avg. Demo Speed (Mobile) | Avg. Demo Speed (Desktop) |
|---|---|---|
| Soho | 65 | 85 |
| Booklium | 76 | 88 |
Tip: while choosing the best hotel theme, you should make sure its design displays on any device and has good loading speed scores.
Integration with Third-Party Tools and Services
What services and plugins do these themes seamlessly integrate with? Let’s see in the table:
| Soho Hotel WP theme | Booklium | |
|---|---|---|
| OTAs | That support iCal (Booking.com, Airbnb, TripAdvisor, etc.) | That support iCal (Booking.com, Airbnb, TripAdvisor, etc.) |
| PriceLabs | No | Yes ($89) |
| MailChimp | No | Yes ($59) |
| Translation | Built-in plugin | Compatible with WPML |
- Both themes allow you to sync bookings across OTAs that support iCal. Thus, you can avoid double-booking and build an online presence for your property on multiple platforms.
- Booklium enables you to integrate MailChimp for effective email marketing campaigns and PriceLabs for dynamic pricing.
- Soho comes with a built-in translation plugin, while Booklium is compatible with WPML.
Customer Support
Support options come in handy if you have some questions or tackle issues while using the theme. So, what do the compared themes ensure?
| Soho | Booklium | |
|---|---|---|
| Support Options | Support from the author on Envato | Documentation, live chat, ticketing system, video tutorials, extended support |
| Support Duration | 6 months | 1 year |
Since Soho is available on the ThemeForest marketplace, you’ll receive support from its author there. You can ask questions and repost bugs on the theme page. If necessary, it’s possible to extend the support to 1 year at an additional cost.
Booklium is supported by the MotoPress team which means you can use detailed documentation, watch video guides, or submit a ticket. On top of that, you are free to join discussions on a forum and Facebook groups.
If you need help with installing and setting up the MotoPress Hotel Booking plugin, you may use the Initial Configuration service.
Pricing and Licensing Details
Last but not least, let’s put the theme cost side by side:
| Soho Hotel WP theme | Booklium | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $59 |
|
| License | One-time fee | 1 year or lifetime |
*Prices are current as of the date of this article and may change.
Soho hotel theme WordPress is available on ThemeForest for a one-time fee, with Booklium being more expensive.
However, a Booklium license gives you 1 year of support and theme updates. Its price also depends on the number of websites you’re going to apply it for.
We can’t help mentioning that the MotoPress lineup includes a hotel booking WordPress theme collection. The themes are designed for various niches, such as camping, single properties, hotels, pet hotels, villas, and others.
MotoPress Hotel Booking Themes
If you create a website for different kinds of properties, you can get ALL MotoPress themes & plugins at a discounted price in Membership.
Soho Hotel WP Theme vs Booklium: Pros and Cons
So, what are the strengths and weaknesses of each theme? Let’s outline them!
Soho hotel theme
Pros:
- A built-in booking system;
- A wide range of pricing settings;
- More pre-made demos compared to Booklium;
- One-time fee;
- More options for guests and rooms;
- Built-in translation plugin.
Cons:
- Online payments are available with WooCommerce only;
- Fewer integrations with third-party services and tools.
Booklium theme
Pros:
- Included MotoPress Hotel Booking plugin;
- Built-in online payment gateways;
- Integrations with PriceLabs and MailChimp;
- The ability to add advanced features via extensions;
- Hotel Booking mobile app;
- More support options.
Cons:
- Fewer demos;
- Limited flexibility of a pricing system compared to Soho;
- Higher price.
Final Verdict: Which One to Choose?
If you are deciding on the best WordPress theme for hotel website needs, it ultimately depends on your hotel size, booking system requirements, and budget. While larger properties require a feature-packed solution full of customization options, smaller hotels, B&Bs, and vacation rentals prioritize simplicity and a streamlined booking process.
So, would you opt for the Soho hotel WP theme, or is Booklium a better fit? Share your choice in the comments!
Disclosure: this article may contain affiliate links for third-party products. If you click a link and later make a purchase, we may earn an affiliate commission that doesn’t result in additional charges to you.
FAQ
Is MotoPress Hotel Booking included for free with Booklium?
What is the best WordPress hotel theme?
