Booking Engine Proposal
Summary
Arte Hospitality wants guests to book directly on its own hotel sites, in the hotel's own style, without being sent to a Mews page, and with what Mews's standard booking page can't do: the full price including the resort fee from the first screen, and the normal price crossed out next to the discount for longer stays. Mews itself has told the group that this needs a booking engine of its own.
We build that engine once, for all the group's hotels, on top of Mews, which stays the system the hotels run on. It does what Mews's own booking page does, screen by screen, in each hotel's style, on each hotel's own site.
Arte has full and permanent rights to its engine, which lives inside Arte's own web and digital ecosystem — not outside it. It runs in your Cloudflare account, with all code in your GitHub, so it becomes a natural part of how Arte operates online, not a separate system that depends on someone else to keep.
The work is built in two phases. Phase 1 puts Park Central's own site live on the engine — real guests, real bookings, real payments — and lays the foundation every other hotel runs on. Phase 2 connects the remaining hotels and adds the console to manage them, reporting, and a connection for sites that want to build their own screens.
Why two phases: it's a fair split of risk. We haven't built on Mews before, and some of its behavior only shows once you build — so we agree Phase 2's exact scope only after Phase 1 is done and working. You get a working result at Park Central first, and decide on Phase 2 with full clarity. If you're not happy with Phase 1, the project stops there, and Park Central keeps its booking engine.
Planned: Park Central live in December 2026, a few weeks after its new site launches; the other hotels in January and February 2027.
The Team
Remco Douma — Technical Lead. Remco leads the technical side of this project. He has been building software for more than 30 years, as a developer, architect, test manager and project leader. At Aegon, a large Dutch insurance company, he designed a sales platform used by hundreds of financial advisors, the engine that routed their requests to the back office, and led the team that built both. For 24 years he ran his own software company, Cygno Solutions, building systems for banks, insurers and financial firms across Europe. Today he leads AI coding agents the way he once led development teams. His most recent result is domizello (domizello.com), a real-estate marketplace for Uruguay that he built with a single business partner in nine months, without a development team. It runs online payments, electronically signed contracts, WhatsApp and email notifications, a full back office, and more than 13,000 automated tests. That is how we can deliver a booking engine of this quality at this price. Remco is Dutch, lives in Uruguay, and works in English and Spanish.
Andrés Castro — Strategy, Search & Platform Architecture. Andrés leads strategy, search and the platform architecture of this project. With more than 25 years in networks and communications, he is an expert in connectivity, integrations and architecture across every layer of the OSI model, including international network connectivity over MPLS transport and BGP routing. For more than 10 years he has worked directly with Google's algorithm and other search-engine algorithms, and today he stays current with AI search engines and AI visibility, so the properties are found wherever guests search. On top of that, he brings the full web stack: development, security, performance optimization and edge-platform architecture, with deep Cloudflare expertise (and equivalent platforms) for speed, protection and reliability at the edge. Andrés works hand-in-hand with Remco, supporting domizello.com on SEO, GEO, structured data (schema), AI automations, and multi-stage AI content generation with revisions in two languages (EN, ES). They also delivered that same stack for another real-estate client — including a complex migration of a 15,000+ URL WordPress site to a new WordPress, done without moving the database or backups, so no legacy errors or old code carry over — with every element mapped and migrated through AI-driven automation, in four languages (EN, DE, PT, ES).
The end result — what every hotel gets
At Park Central after Phase 1, and at every hotel after Phase 2:
- Booking on the hotel's own site. The guest stays on the hotel's site (for Park Central, parkcentralsouthbeach.com) from search to confirmation, card payment included. No redirect to a Mews page.
- The steps guests know from Mews's own booking page, in each hotel's style: dates and guests, rooms, rates, summary, details and payment, confirmation — with promo codes, several rooms in one booking, and booking for someone else.
- The full price from the first screen, resort fee and taxes included, as US rules require. From what we've seen, Mews's standard page adds the resort fee only at the summary.
- The discount made visible. Longer stays are cheaper at Park Central (for example 25% off for 3 to 6 nights). Next to the discounted price, the guest sees the normal price crossed out, so the saving is obvious at a glance.
- A few rooms left: the screen says so when availability is low.
- No unpaid bookings. A booking is only confirmed once the card payment has gone through; if the guest doesn't pay within 15 minutes, the room is released again. The card form is Mews's own, inside the hotel's page, so card data never reaches us.
- English and Spanish from day one.
- Nothing changes for the staff. Bookings appear in Mews like any other. Guests cancel through the link in Mews's confirmation email, as they do today.
- A safety switch: if anything goes wrong, one switch sends guests to Mews's standard booking page, without touching the site.
And after Phase 2, for the group as a whole:
- One place for all hotels: a console where we add a hotel and set its style and options, without new code.
- Reporting: bookings, revenue and conversion per hotel.
- Ready for more: a documented connection that a future site or app can use to build its own booking screens, and a base for what comes later — such as restaurants or a booking across several hotels.
- Accessible to guests with disabilities, audited against the WCAG 2.1 AA standard.
All of this rests on our current understanding of what Mews allows. Where Mews doesn't allow something, we look for a workaround — but in the end, the engine can only do what Mews's systems let it do.
How we work
Two phases. Each ends with something running for real guests, and you decide at the end of Phase 1 whether to continue.
- Phase 1: Park Central live on your booking engine. We build the engine's foundation and the seven booking screens in Park Central's style, connected to Mews. Mews certifies the connection. We test with real cards and the bank's card check, then switch Park Central's site from Mews's page to your engine, step by step. Park Central's settings are done by us, by hand; the console to manage hotels comes in Phase 2. Along the way we find out what Mews offers for restaurants, for Phase 2's estimate. You sign off after two weeks of live use without a critical problem. Price: fixed. With it: the firm price for Phase 2.
- Phase 2: every hotel connected. The console where we add and manage hotels, their styles and options; reporting per hotel; each hotel's data kept apart; the connection that lets a site build its own screens, with documentation; the accessibility audit; a security review of the whole system. Then the Bentley and the new hotel go live, each in its own style. You sign off once each hotel has been live for two weeks without a critical problem. Price: an indication now, firm after Phase 1.
- Further hotels. From then on, a hotel is configuration, not code. Price: an estimate per hotel now, firm when that hotel starts.
Why Phase 2 comes with an indication
Two things are still open. First, Mews: some things can only be known by building against it — such as whether its systems behave as documented, and how its payment step works on a hotel's own site. Second, Phase 2's own scope: which reports the group wants, and the ideas that will come up once Park Central runs on the engine. That's why Phase 2 has a range, not a price. Phase 1 finds out, at a fixed price that protects you. After it, we agree Phase 2's scope and give a firm price; you can include or leave out features to move that price. You then decide whether to continue — and if Phase 1 didn't convince, you don't have to.
Investment
| What | Price | When it's paid |
|---|---|---|
| Phase 1 · Park Central live, and the foundation for every hotel | $25,000 fixed price | 50% at the start, 50% on acceptance |
| Phase 2 · Every hotel connected: the Bentley and the new hotel, the console, reporting | $30,000 – $50,000 indication | Evaluated immediately after Phase 1, once the unknowns in the Mews API are resolved |
| Each further hotel | ~$2,000 estimate | 50% when that hotel starts, 50% when it's live |
This is an indication based on our experience, not a fixed quote. Phase 2's scope isn't known yet, so it can come out higher or lower; we agree the exact scope and price together after Phase 1. Anything Arte doesn't need can be removed, which lowers the price.
The build itself includes everything needed to make the engine fully reliable and stable at launch, so there's no separate support fee in the early months. After go-live we recommend a light monthly plan: a small, fixed pool of hours each month for maintenance and repairs — we don't charge more if that estimate is exceeded. It's optional and covers maintenance (new features are quoted separately); we'll price it during Phase 1, once the live system's exact needs are clear.
Phase 1 is more than one hotel's booking page: most of it is the engine every other hotel runs on. That's why the next hotel costs a fraction of the first.
Possible additions later
Not in the engine now, because Mews's own booking page doesn't do them either, or you don't need them yet. The engine is built so they can be added one by one, after Phase 2 or alongside it, once we know Mews better. Each gets its own proposal when you want it.
- Restaurants: table booking.
- Finding and canceling a booking in the engine's own screens.
- Changing a booking online: other dates or another room.
- Extras during booking, such as parking or breakfast.
- Group bookings, also split across several hotels.
- More languages and currencies.
- Passing guests' details to the group's CRM or email-marketing tool.
- The funnel: labels such as "best value", offers and seasonal deals in the booking flow.
- Pages per room type, made to be found on Google.
- A console for hotel staff, with roles.
- Booking on the group website, across all hotels.
Each addition depends on what Mews's systems allow, and some may turn out costly. More currencies, for example, only work if Mews Payments charges in them; otherwise they need another payment provider.
The code
Arte owns everything that is yours: the configuration, data, theme, texts, and the installation in your own Cloudflare account and GitHub. You also get a permanent, unlimited right to use the engine — to see and change all its code, and have any developer maintain it.
We keep the right to reuse the general code — such as the connection to Mews — for other clients, but never your own parts. If you'd prefer the engine for yourselves alone, so it isn't used for any other hotel in Miami, that exclusivity is available at a surcharge, and we can discuss the terms.
Timeline
- November 2026 · Phase 1: building, Mews's certification, testing on a copy of Park Central's site. Needs only a few hours of your time, while the new site launches.
- December 2026 · Park Central live on your engine, a few weeks after its new site launches; two weeks to acceptance.
- January – February 2027 · Phase 2: the console and reporting, then the Bentley and the new hotel live.
Two waits we don't control: Mews's review of the connection (Mews says live within 24 hours of a clean review, but not how long the queue is), and your answers.
What we need from you
- In Mews: the Spanish names and descriptions of rooms and rates (we can prepare the translations), and the approval that registers the engine for production.
- On the site: the style of each site (fonts, colors), access to the sites, and a few hours of the site developer's time to embed the engine, with our instructions.
- Reference booking engines: screenshots or domains of booking engines you like, or that you'd like to reach — so we can match the look and feel you have in mind.
- Written acceptance at the end of each phase.
Not included
- Anything Mews's own booking page doesn't do, such as the additions above, and booking event venues.
- Changes to the hotels' websites themselves. We deliver a ready-to-embed engine with instructions, and support the site's developer.
- Mews's own fees and the group's Cloudflare costs.
- Legal advice on accessibility or fee rules. We build to the standard; the liability for the sites stays with the hotel.
Questions you may have
- $25,000 for one hotel's booking page? Phase 1 is the whole engine: the connection to Mews, the payment, the seven screens, Mews's certification, security, and testing with real cards. Park Central is the first hotel on it. The next hotel costs a fraction of that, because it reuses everything.
- What does Phase 2 include? The console to add and manage every hotel (no new code), reporting per hotel, the Bentley and the new hotel going live, the connection for future sites to build their own screens, and a full security review plus the accessibility audit. It's scoped and priced firmly only after Phase 1, once the Mews unknowns are clear.
- Why not keep Mews's own booking page? It sends guests to a Mews page, shows the resort fee only at the end, and can't show the crossed-out price. Mews itself told the group that this needs its own development. Mews's page stays as the fallback.
- Can we stop after Phase 1? Yes. Park Central keeps running on your engine. Phase 2 starts only when you say so, with a firm price.
- What if something breaks during high season? Alerts reach us when bookings fail, and one switch sends guests to Mews's standard page within minutes, without touching the site.
- What if Mews changes something? We keep the engine working as Mews evolves; the ongoing support for this is scoped with you during Phase 1.
- Is the guests' card data safe? It never reaches us: the card form is Mews's own, and payments go through Mews Payments as they do today.
- What if you're no longer around? The engine runs in the group's own Cloudflare account, with all code in the group's GitHub and documented, so another developer can take over.
- And the restaurants? During Phase 1 we find out what Mews offers for them, and Phase 2's proposal says what restaurant booking takes.
Architecture
Mews at the bottom, with its three ways in: the Booking API, the Connector API and Mews Payments. The booking engine stands on top.
Every hotel site has one connection: to the engine. The sites never need to know Mews — a hotel's site shows the ready-made screens in a frame, or builds its own screens on the engine's connection. If the group ever changes systems, only the engine changes, not every site.
Every site and the admin console talk to the engine; the modules in front are optional, per hotel. Phase 1 builds the engine and Park Central's connection; Phase 2 the console and the other hotels.
The screens
The same steps as Mews's own booking page, which guests and staff already know. What we add is in the last column.
| Step | What the guest does | Beyond Mews's page |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · Dates and guests | Picks dates, adults and children; enters a promo code | In the hotel's style, on the hotel's site |
| 2 · Rooms | Sees the room types with photos and a from-price | The from-price includes the resort fee |
| 3 · Rates | Chooses flexible or non-refundable, and how many rooms | The crossed-out price; "a few rooms left" |
| 4 · Summary | Sees the room, the resort fee, each tax and the total | — |
| 5 · Details and payment | Enters guest details and the card, accepts the terms | Mews's card form inside the hotel's page: no redirect |
| 6 · Card check | Passes the bank's check (3-D Secure) if asked | On the hotel's site |
| 7 · Confirmation | Gets the confirmation number, and Mews's email | — |
What each phase consists of
Phase 1 · Park Central live on your booking engine
| Part | What it is | What drives the effort |
|---|---|---|
| Foundation | The server, the connection to Mews, the engine's own connection that the screens use, the design system and Park Central's theme | Built to last: every hotel runs on it |
| The seven screens | On phone and desktop, in English and Spanish, with every error situation handled | Matching Mews's prices and rules exactly |
| Payment | Mews's card form in the hotel's page, the bank's check, the booking held until it's paid, the 15-minute window before an unpaid booking is released | The biggest technical risk |
| Proving the unknowns | Prices from the server, the crossed-out price, availability, Mews's request limit | What Mews allows and returns |
| Mews certification | The form, 48 hours of test traffic, Mews's review | Mews's process and waiting time |
| Ready for real guests | Security, logging and alerts, Mews's emails, automated tests, the instructions for the site's developer | Finding any guest's problem fast |
| Live at Park Central | Production access, real bookings with real cards, then refunded; the staged switch; two weeks of close watch | Real money before real guests |
| Review with the client | Two feedback rounds on a copy of the site, what Mews offers restaurants, the firm price for Phase 2 | The client's speed |
Phase 2 · Every hotel connected
| Part | What it is | What drives the effort |
|---|---|---|
| The admin console | Adding a hotel with its Mews connection, keys and domains, users with two-factor login, the on/off switch, usage per key, the logs | For us only; staff keep using Mews |
| Per-hotel setup | Each hotel's style, texts and options, set in the console | The next hotel is configuration, not code |
| Reporting | Bookings, revenue and conversion per hotel; usage per site | Deciding what matters to the group |
| Several hotels, kept apart | Each hotel's Mews keys and data separate | One hotel can never see another's |
| The connection for own screens | Keys per site, stable versions, rate limits, documentation, examples, a test key | Others build on it: it must stay stable |
| Security and accessibility | A security review of the whole system, monitoring per hotel, the accessibility audit | A system with several hotels' money in it |
| The Bentley and the new hotel | Configuration, theme, embedding, testing, go-live | Each site's developer and its Mews settings |
Payments and security
- Card data never reaches the engine's systems: the card form is Mews Payments' own component.
- Mews's secret key lives only on the engine's server.
- Rate limits and Cloudflare's bot protection in front of the engine's server.
The Arte Hospitality Website: One Booking Hub for the Whole Group
As you build the new Arte Hospitality corporate website, artehospitality.com, the same booking engine can power it too — so the brand site becomes more than a brochure.
Two options are technically possible, as an addition with its own price — separate from the Phase 2 range: activate booking per hotel from the corporate site, or show one integrated view of the complete offer across all Arte hotels — every property and room type together. Either way, artehospitality.com can present the full portfolio and become a place that books directly.
This isn't a commitment — it's an opportunity we can evaluate together. The exact scope depends on what Phase 1 reveals and on what Mews allows, so we'll confirm the details once Phase 1 is underway. We're flagging it now because it's genuinely valuable: it lets you make the most of the Arte Hospitality brand, with the whole offer integrated in one place.