About Roamafar

Roamafar is a peculiar booking and renting business idea which aims at connecting Recreations Vehicle owners to roadtrippers who want them for a holiday trip. Roamafar rents out an exhaustive range of RVs of all sizes, shapes and utilities to camping and travel enthusiasts. Other offerings of Roamafar include 24/7 roadside assistance, special prices, listing RV for rent and option to start dealership.

Roamafar's Requirements

Will and Molly, the founders of Roamafar wanted to build a fast, easy-to-use and 24/7 roadside assistance providing online booking and rental website for RVs.

They approached Contus to build a website where RV owners can enlist their vehicle for rentals and from where travellers can search and pick RVs of their choice. The website was meant to have provision for periodic booking and also roadside assistance.

As a full-fledged RV booking website, Roamafar was also envisioned to have a dashboard showing all RV listings, calendar management and internal chat system with the owners. Additionally, Will and Molly also wanted the website to allow individuals to sign up as dealers to rent out RVs.

The Challenge

The primary challenge in creating Roamafar was to bridge together a unique platform where RV owners, travellers and dealers had a common way to communicate and transact business. The website required an advanced search tool which will help travellers narrow down on their specific choice of RV with desired features.

Secondly, RV owners were to have a simple and effortless way of enlisting their RVs, screen their potential guests (drivers), manage calendar for bookings and receive income into their bank account through a secure payment system.

Contus' Solutions

Roamafar had a novel business idea which needed elaborate tech assistance to turn it into a revenue model. Manual spreadsheet based management was proving to be a disaster as booking often overlapped.

At A Glance

Roamafar is the dream of a roadtripping couples to build a RV rental website made. Contus made the dream possible with a customized vacation rental software that was complete with live dashboard, hourly booking, calendar management, geolocation based booking and secure payment systems.

Industry

eCommerce - Travel

Key Results

Roamafar's innovative business idea was turned into a profitable revenue model with Contus' tech assistance. The website continues to be a favorite virtual platform for RV owners and travellers alike to satiate their personal interests.

Technologies Involved

  • OS - Linux
  • Web Server - Apache/Nginx
  • Database - Mysql 5.6
  • Language - PHP 5.6
  • eCommerce CMS - Magento 1.x
  • Clientside - HTML5, CSS3, JQuery

Contus pitched in with its vacation rental software 'Airhotels'. Roamafar's requirements were met heads on by tweaking the software internally to provide Roamafar with a custom-built RV booking website. The following features were integrated to achieve the requirements of Roamafar:

Dynamic filter

To help campers zero down on the right RV of their choice and taste a multiple criteria based dynamic filter was equipped in the website. This made RV search and booking possible through minimal steps.

Calendar management

Roamafar wanted a flawlessly integrated calendar system where bookings will take place with clockwork precision. To achieve that, Contus deployed a failproof calendar management system that helped RV managers rent out their RVs to campers without overlapping bookings.

Hourly booking

To make RV bookings even closer to the needs of campers, a hourly booking system was also integrated into Roamafar. This helped RV owners to clock maximum revenue.

Guest management

Driver screening and profiling for campers who booked RVs to help RV owners establish the genuinity of the guest they are dealing with.

Internal chat

To set the stage for proper communication between RV owners and campers before a booking was completed, an internal chat system was equipped in the website.

Interface

Simple, easy-to-use and convenient - just as Roamafar had envisioned.

Location-based booking

GPS API based booking system that allowed users to pick RVs that were located closer to their place of choice.

Dealership

A utilitarian marketplace for RV owners or interested individuals to begin their own dealership was created by tweaking the Airhotels software.

Smart Search
Secure Payments
RV Rentals
Trailer Rentals

Result

Roamafar became an instant hit with RV owners and roadtrippers alike. It became a spare income earning avenue for RV owners who had their vehicles idling for most part of the year. For travellers it became a to-go destination to quickly and easily rent RV of any size or type from chosen location. Individuals with an entrepreneurial stint were able to capitalize on the growing demand for rental RVs by kickstarting an online dealership.