Tourism website in Madeira: experiences and direct bookings.
How tour operators and lodgings on the island sell experiences with direct bookings, without handing commission to platforms, what it costs in 2026 and what the site needs.
A tourism website in Madeira, experience operator, local accommodation or country house, starts with a landing page from €800, a full site with date-based bookings from €1,500, or from €199/month as a subscription (Commerce plan, management included). The sector's logic is simple: every direct booking is a commission that stays; every high-season week sold in January, on your site, is margin the platforms never touch. What the site needs: experiences well told, tickets or a frictionless booking request, multilingual pages and photography worthy of the island.
| Format | What it includes | Price (2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Experience landing page | One experience, tickets, contact | €800 – €2,500 |
| Full website | Multiple experiences/lodging, bookings, blog | €1,500 – €6,000 |
| Commerce subscription | Managed site with changes included, from | €199/month |
Swipe the table sideways →
Ranges for the Portuguese market in 2026, valid in the region (remote work). Starting prices used by Nuno Costa (Funchal): landing €800 · brochure €1,500 · subscription €49/month.
Selling the experience, not renting it to the platforms
The island's tourist experience, a levada walk at dawn, whale and dolphin watching, a night in a stone house in Paul do Mar, sells three times: before the trip (when it is chosen), during (when it is recommended) and after (when it is recommended to friends). Booking platforms dominate the first moment and charge for it on every ticket, forever. Your own website returns the first moment to the operator: it is where the experience gets told in full, with dates, price and booking without a middleman.
The maths is short and every operator knows it: the platform commission on a full season of tickets pays for a complete website several times over. And the customer who books direct is the only contact that stays, for reviews, for the next visit, for the recommendation. See the full pattern in the demo tourism website.
What a tourism website needs to have
- Experiences told as experiences. What you see, what to bring, the difficulty level, what is included, not a sentence and a button.
- Tickets or booking by date. A calendar with availability, or a form with a reply within hours; every saved click is a sale that does not escape.
- Real multilingual. English at minimum, German and French where the audience justifies it, the tourist books in the language they planned the trip in.
- Photography worthy of the island. Madeira sells itself in images; your experience needs to appear with the right light and detail, not stock photos.
- Visible seasonality. Calendars by season, weather conditions, what happens in winter, clarity prevents cancellations and unfair reviews.
This set comes ready in the tourism and lodging websites, with a template adapted to your brand.
What a tourism website costs
The experience landing page, one activity or lodging, with tickets or a booking request, solves the essentials from €800 and is the right format for anyone starting out or for a single experience sold well. The full website, with several experiences or lodging units, calendars, blog and multilingual pages, starts at €1,500. The Commerce subscription, at €199/month, delivers the managed site with availability and price changes included, the natural format for a business whose offer changes with the seasons.
Ticketing systems with QR validation, check-in and channel-manager integrations are quoted separately, and only enter when ticket volume justifies them; until then, a well-handled form and a team that replies fast cover the essentials.
The site works the winter to sell the summer
In tourism, the website is a time machine: the weeks of August are decided in searches made in January and February. That is the winter when the experience content has to be live, translated and well photographed; that is the winter when the baseline SEO, titles, descriptions, the Google listing, speed, has to be done. Launching the site in May is handing the whole season to the platforms, which were there all year.
The low season has a product too: winter events, golf, winter walking, the long-stay audience. A site with a real calendar sells all twelve months instead of surrendering to the five the platforms leave.
Checklist before ordering the website
- Start in the low season. Build when there is time, launch before the high one; the timeline guide lets you plan backwards from the season's date.
- Direct booking in the scope. Tickets or the form written into the quote, it is the piece that pays for the rest.
- Translations in the scope. "Multilingual" in writing, with the languages named and the content included.
- Planned photography. One well-made session feeds the site, social media and the Google listing for years.
- Post-launch inclusions. Who updates calendars, prices and availability, at what cost; averages in the maintenance guide.
Already selling on platforms and want the direct bookings escaping? Start with the free audit of the current site, or with the conversation about the site that does not exist yet.