Case Study · No. 03
Amazing Batangas
A province-wide directory where booking a stay, reserving a table, and buying something local all actually work, not just list a phone number.
The situation
Batangas has resorts, restaurants, farms, activities, and small businesses scattered across the province with no single organized directory. Most had no way to actually take a booking, a reservation, or an order online beyond a Facebook message and hoping someone replies. Merchants managed whatever presence they had through raw wp-admin, with no dashboard, no notifications, and no way to actually take bookings or orders through the site.
What I built
A real directory organized around three categories, and three genuinely different systems behind them: a booking system with live availability for Places to Stay, a reservation system for Places to Eat, and a mini e-commerce system for Places to Go. Every listing carries real reviews from real guests, not a star rating with no substance behind it.
On the business side, there's a full merchant dashboard on a real REST API, entirely outside wp-admin: managing listings, bookings, reservations, and closure reports. A branded HTML email system handles the notifications on both ends.
A real decision
The easier build would have been one generic contact form for every listing type. The actual decision was to treat a resort booking, a restaurant reservation, and a shop order as three different problems, because they are: different data (check-in dates versus party size versus a cart), different timing (nights booked in advance versus a same-day table versus an instant purchase), and different follow-through. Building three real systems instead of one generic one is why a booking on the live site actually works end to end, with a real calendar, guest counters, and a confirmation flow, not just a form that emails someone and hopes.
The homepage: search across every category, straight in.
A real listing with real guest reviews, not a placeholder rating.
The actual booking flow: live availability, guest counters, and a map, working end to end.
The outcome
A directory spanning multiple cities and towns across the province, with real listings, real reviews, and a booking system that genuinely works rather than just looking like it does. Merchants run their own listings and bookings through a real dashboard instead of raw wp-admin.
Tech stack
Need something like this built?
Tell me what your operation actually does all day, and I'll tell you honestly what's worth building. No jargon, no "let's circle back."