If you’re running a travel agency website on WordPress, chances are quite high that you’ve come across WP Travel Engine. While it’s a popular choice, many users find themselves limited by its customization options, steep learning curve, or lack of specific features needed to grow a modern travel business.
These limitations can hold you back, leading to lost bookings, a clunky user experience, and ultimately, frustrated customers. You might feel like you’re settling for “good enough” when what you really need is a tool that works for you, not against you.
That’s where Tourfic steps in. Designed with flexibility, ease-of-use, and real-world travel agency needs in mind, Tourfic is rapidly emerging as the best alternative to WP Travel Engine—offering powerful features without the hassle.
In this blog post, we’ll break down WP Travel Engine vs Tourfic to help you decide which one truly deserves a spot on your travel website.
Tourfic vs WP Travel Engine: Overview
We have decided to share a closed comparison between WP Travel Engine and Tourfic in this section. After all, it is a great way to advocate our statement about “Tourfic is always a better plugin than WP Travel Engine in many distinct ways.
Let’s begin!
A Quick Features of Comparison Table
Here’s a feature comparison table to give you a quick overview:
| Feature of Comparison | Tourfic | WP Travel Engine |
| Booking Types | Hotels, tours, rentals, cars | Primarily tours and packages |
| Multi-Vendor Marketplace | Yes, built-in marketplace | No, single vendor focus |
| User Interface (UI) | Modern, intuitive, polished | Improved, but less polished |
| Pricing & Value | Excellent for diverse offerings | Competitive for tour operators |
| Customer Support | Email, Facebook, Live Chat | Email, Facebook, Live Chat |
| User Experience | Calendar, gallery, currency converter | Itinerary, currency converter |
| WooCommerce Integration | Seamless, leverages full power | Solid, leverages WooCommerce |
| Page Builder Compatibility | Elementor, Gutenberg, major builders | Gutenberg, Elementor widgets |
| Advanced Booking Features | Room management, iCal sync, amenities | Tour-specific features, group discounts |
| Customization & Extendability | Flexible framework, shortcodes, hooks | Good, but less broad flexibility |
| SEO Optimization | Broad SEO plugin compatibility | Works with major SEO plugins |
| Average User Rating | 4.6 out of 5 stars (WordPress.org) | 4.6 out of 5 stars (WordPress.org) |
| Reviews System | Dedicated multi-type reviews | Customer trip reviews |
| Partial Payment Option | Yes, flexible deposit options | Yes, partial payment available |
| Email Notifications | Customizable booking confirmations | Automated booking notifications |
Now, let’s see the differences between both plugins.
i. WP Travel Engine
WP Travel Engine is known as a “guru” when it comes to providing unlimited tour and travel packages. That’s why it is known as the most advanced WordPress travel and tour booking solution plugin. Agencies can quickly create outstanding travel packages without needing any additional help or the installation of extra plugins.
This plugin claims that you can build your SEO-friendly websites in minutes, but we know it is not possible, even though you are an expert-level WordPress developer. This is because it’s a plugin with numerous complex features and functionalities that a beginner or a moderately skilled developer may struggle to work with properly. However, one thing we loved about this plugin – “No Coding Required.”
At the same time, we have analyzed that it has limited features as compared to bigger travel and tour booking plugins like Tourfic. Still, it has some strong features and solutions that are hard to deny.
Main Features of WP Travel Engine
Let’s share a few main features of the WP Travel Engine plugin below.
- Unlimited Travel Packages
According to WP Travel Engine developers, you can create as many tours and travel packages as your business offers without any limitations. This shows you can easily add detailed descriptions, stunning galleries, comprehensive itineraries, pricing, and essential trip facts. It is the most effective way to showcase your diverse offerings.
- Advanced Trip Search and Filter
This feature enables customers to find their ideal trip quickly. The plugin includes powerful search filters that allow end users to search by destination, activities, duration, budget, and more. Or, you can create custom filters for a tailored “Browse” experience on your travel or tour booking site.
- Smart Travel Booking Process
WP Travel Engine is recognized for providing a seamless and efficient booking experience for your customers. The process is quick and intelligent. It involves automatically adjusting prices based on group size. Plus, the form is concise. It asks only for the necessary details to speed up conversions and increase sales.
- Payment Processing
You can securely accept payments online. WP Travel Engine integrates with a wide range of popular payment gateways. This makes it easy for customers to book and pay directly on your website. Also, this streamlines transactions and improves your cash flow management.
- Itinerary Builder
You are free to create detailed and engaging day-by-day itineraries for your trips. In simple words, you can include descriptions, locations, activities, meals, accommodation details, and even altitude charts. This helps potential travelers visualize their adventure and gets them excited about booking.
- Flexible Pricing Options
Setting up diverse pricing structures to suit different travelers is available here. You can offer options like child discounts, group rates, seasonal pricing adjustments, and special coupon codes for promotions. This flexibility allows you to cater to various market segments, boost sales, increase ROI, and get leads.
- Booking Management Dashboard
Now, you can keep all your booking information organized in one central place. The user-friendly dashboard is the hub of this plugin. It lets you easily view, manage, and update bookings, track payments, handle cancellations, and access traveler details. This is an amazing feature that makes administration efficient.
- SEO Friendly
If you want to improve your website’s visibility in search results, you can do that easily with WP Travel Engine. Actually, this plugin is built with SEO best practices in mind and includes features like schema markup support. This helps search engines understand your content better. As a result, it leads to higher rankings and more organic traffic.
- Partial Payment Option
You can offer flexibility by allowing customers to pay a portion of the trip cost upfront. This is especially useful for high-value or multi-day tours. So, this feature makes them more accessible and reduces a barrier to booking for many travelers.
- Email Notifications
Last but not least, you can automate communication with your customers and staff. In addition to that, you can customize booking confirmation emails sent to customers and receive notifications for new bookings or inquiries. This ensures everyone stays informed and enhances customer service efficiency.
ii. Tourfic
Let’s meet Tourfic – a great travel and tour booking plugin for WordPress users, developers, designers, and business owners. This is the one and only plugin that competes with most of the biggest and oldest plugins. Not only that, it wins the battle of Tourfic vs WP Travel Engine. Its worth-mentioning strength and undeniable functionalities proved that it’s the best plugin for you, especially in this modern era where no one has much time to do coding.
Yup, no coding is required here. Just drag and drop options and some other user-friendly features available on its dashboard are enough to do your work. Thus, Tourfic is a genuinely outstanding WordPress booking plugin, a true asset for hotels and tour operators. Its feature set is comprehensive yet incredibly easy to navigate that makes management simpler than ever before.
Besides that, you can effortlessly create and showcase stunning listings that will capture the attention and interest of your clients. Not only that, you can handle bookings, payments, and inventory all within a smooth and intuitive interface. This shows Tourfic strengthens your business from all sides. It helps attract more direct bookings and streamlining operations beautifully.
Moveover, it provides robust tools for growth and offers a reliable and efficient platform that you can trust. This tour and travel booking plugin truly uplifts your travel website. More importantly, it’s not only for pro-level developers; any beginner or medium-level WordPress users can use it easily without any previous knowledge. So, let’s experience the powerful and positive difference Tourfic makes for your business today.
Main Features of Tourfic Plugin
Let’s walk through the worth using features of the Tourfic plugin.
- Unified Booking Platform (Hotel, Tour, Rental, Car)
You can manage bookings for hotels, tours, vacation rentals, and car rentals all within a single plugin. This is the power of the Tourfic plugin. This broad scope provides a significant advantage over WP Travel Engine and many other popular plugins. It allows diverse travel businesses to use one powerful tool instead of multiple plugins.
- Multi-Vendor Marketplace Capability
You can easily change your entire WordPress site into a marketplace using this feature. It allows other vendors to list and sell their own hotels, tours, apartments, or cars. This is a key differentiator that enables you to build a platform like Booking.com or Airbnb.
- Hotel Booking & Room Management
Tourfic offers comprehensive features specifically for hotels, including detailed room management, availability control, and pricing per room. This deep functionality deals directly to accommodation providers. This is the focus of Tourfic that is often less prominent in pure tour plugins like WP Travel Engine.
- Apartment & Vacation Rental Management
Dedicated tools are available for listing and managing apartments and vacation rentals. It includes amenities, photos, pricing strategies, and availability. This expands your business possibilities beyond traditional tours and hotels.
- Car Rental Booking System
This plugin also includes features tailored for car rentals, such as flexible pricing, car inventory management, and options for drivers or protection plans. This specific vertical is often not covered by tour-centric plugins.
- WooCommerce Integration
You can seamlessly integrate with WooCommerce. This availability and flexibility of WooCommerce integration leverages its robust e-commerce capabilities for payments, order management, and taxation. In simple words, this provides a familiar and powerful foundation for online transactions.
- Advanced Search and Filtering (Ajax-based)
When we talk about Tourfic vs WP Travel Engine, Tourfic provides a highly responsive and dynamic search experience for users across all listing types (hotels, tours, rentals, cars). Its Ajax technology delivers faster and more interactive search results that improve user experience significantly.
- Detailed Itinerary Builder with Map Integration
It’s time to create comprehensive tour itineraries with daily plans, maps, and media. Although others have builders, the integration capabilities of Tourfic enhance the user’s understanding of the tour flow. It even includes maps within itinerary steps which is a potentially amazing feature.
- Flexible and Dynamic Pricing
Set up complex pricing rules based on various factors like date ranges, number of people, room types, or custom conditions. This flexibility handles diverse pricing scenarios beyond simple per-person or group rates.
- Customer Review System (Multi-type)
A dedicated system for collecting and displaying customer reviews for hotels, tours, apartments, and cars. This provides valuable social proof across all your service types. As a result, it helps you to build trust and encourage further bookings.
- Frontend Dashboard for Vendors & Users
In this feature, you will get dedicated dashboards for both administrators and vendors (in a marketplace setup) as well as customers. This provides a centralized and easy-to-use interface for managing listings, bookings, and profiles.
- iCal Two-Way Sync (Pro Feature)
You can synchronize booking calendars with external platforms like Booking.com using iCal. This feature prevents overbookings and ensures availability is always up-to-date across different channels. It is a critical feature for hotels and rentals.
In addition to above-mentioned features, the entire Tourfic plugin is fully responsible and its GUI is super interactive. Its photo gallery, enquiry form, room management features, advanced search options, advanced/partial payment feature, and many other functionalities are worth considering.
Tourfic vs WP Travel Engine – 10 Features Compared
Here is an honest answer of who wins between a battle of Tourfic vs WP Travel Engine across several key factors:
- Versatile Booking Types & Marketplace
Tourfic stands out from the crowd by offering a broader range of booking functionalities within a single plugin. It is not like WP Travel Engine that primarily focuses on tours and travel packages. Tourfic supports hotels, tours, apartments/rentals, and even car rentals.
This versatility is an appreciable advantage for its users as it deals with diverse travel businesses. Furthermore, Tourfic includes robust multi-vendor capabilities that helps you to create a complete marketplace platform. This means you can host listings from multiple vendors across different travel verticals.
Not only that, Tourfic provides the necessary built-in infrastructure for businesses who are searching for a comprehensive booking website or a marketplace model.
- Customer Support
All plugin users want to get reliable support. For this purpose, WP Travel Engine offers multiple channels for assistance. Its users can email them for detailed questions and a Facebook group is also available that allows community help and discussion. Their live chat provides quick and real-time support for urgent queries. Plus, they help users resolve problems effectively.
Tourfic matches this comprehensive support system entirely. Users of Tourfic also access email support, and they benefit from an active Facebook community group. Live chat is available for immediate help, too.
More importantly, both plugins ensure users can easily get their questions answered. Their support systems are equally responsive and helpful. So, if we compare support of Tourfic vs WP Travel Engine, we find no significant difference here. It is a tie.
- User Interface & Management Dashboard
As you know, user experience is a pivotal point for efficiently managing a WordPress booking website. So, let’s see who wins in offering the best user interface (UI) and management dashboard.
Tourfic offers a modern and highly intuitive user interface, particularly praised for its backend dashboard. This streamlined design makes adding and managing diverse listings like hotels, tours, and rentals straightforward. Tourfic also provides dedicated frontend dashboards for vendors (in a marketplace setup) and customers. It enhances ease of use for all parties involved.
Although WP Travel Engine has improved its UI, graphical user interface and design of Tourfic feels slightly more polished. In addition to that, it is specifically designed to handle the complexity of multiple booking types smoothly.
- Pricing & Value Proposition
When we compare pricing, it requires looking beyond the monthly cost. We need to consider the value offered for different business needs. Let’s have a look at the pricing and value proposition of Tourfic vs WP Travel Engine.
When we talk about WP Travel Engine, it offers competitive pricing for tour operators. The number of features and facilities that this plugin provides are worth the money.
On the flip side, Tourfic’s pricing becomes exceptionally valuable when considering its ability to handle hotels, rentals, and cars. Plus, it offers multi-vendor features. This shows you get everything in one place without needing numerous paid add-ons for different listing types.
Thus, the plans of Tourfic plugin provide a cost-effective solution for businesses with varied offerings or those planning to scale into a multi-vendor model. Particularly, those solutions that are supporting diverse inventory and marketplace features are worth buying. This breadth of included functionality offers better value for broader business scopes.
Here’s a real-time pricing table for Tourfic and WP Travel Engine:
| Pro Feature Comparison | Tourfic Pro | WP Travel Engine Pro |
| Annual Pricing | Starter: $89/year (1 site) Business: $139/year (5 sites) Ultimate: $199/year (Unlimited sites) | Personal: $12/month (billed annually, 1 site) = $144/year Growth: $25/month (billed annually, for growing agencies) = $300/year Travel Agency: $29/month (billed annually, for travel agencies) = $348/year Development Company: $49/month (billed annually, for dev companies) = $588/year |
| Lifetime Pricing | Starter: $224 (1 site) Business: $314 (5 sites) Ultimate: $499 (Unlimited sites) | Personal: $499 (1 site) Growth: $799 (for growing agencies) Travel Agency: $1199 (for travel agencies) Development Company: $1699 (for dev companies) |
| Multi-site Licenses | Up to Unlimited sites available across plans | Up to Unlimited sites available across plans |
| Included Add-ons | All Pro Features included in plans (e.g., multi-vendor, iCal sync, advanced room/car/apartment management) | Numerous add-ons included in bundles (e.g., Partial Payment, Group Discount, Accommodation, Itinerary Downloader) |
| Marketplace Module | Built-in within higher-tier plans | Not a core offering, features mainly tour-centric |
- User Experience
Both WP Travel Engine vs Tourfic prioritize user experience with helpful tools. WP Travel Engine offers an Advanced Itinerary Builder for detailed trip customization and a Currency Converter for easy transactions. It features an intuitive interface for smooth navigation.
Tourfic provides a simple Calendar for planning, a Gallery to display visuals, and a basic Currency Converter. Thus, both plugins enhance the user journey. Their focus on usability is making booking travel straightforward and engaging.
- Integration & Payment Flexibility
When we talk about payment integration facilities between Tourfic vs WP Travel Engine, both plugins offer solid payment gateway support. In most cases, they are even leveraging WooCommerce. However, Tourfic’s deep integration with WooCommerce feels a bit seamless across its various booking types (hotels, tours, rentals, cars).
This facility helps you to utilize the full power of WooCommerce for all your products. Tourfic also emphasizes flexibility in payment methods. It includes options like external bookings and the ability to define complex payment plans or deposits across different listing types. In simple words, this is a comprehensive and integrated approach to payments and order management that provides a slight edge for businesses to handle diverse transactions.
- Compatibility
For compatibility factor, both WP Travel Engine and Tourfic excel. WP Travel Engine integrates smoothly with popular tools like Gutenberg and Elementor. It’s possible via dedicated widgets or blocks that allow flexible page design.
Similarly, Tourfic is built with 100% compatibility in mind. That’s why this plugin works well with major page builders including Elementor and supporting Gutenberg blocks. This guarantees users can build their travel sites using their preferred design tools.
Hence, both travel and tour booking plugins offer robust integration. This functionality gives them an edge in providing a flexible building experience. And their strong compatibility with leading WordPress builders makes them equally versatile.
- Advanced Booking Features
Tourfic provides advanced features which can be customized for each booking type it supports. This includes:
- Detailed room management with inventory tracking for hotels
- Specific amenities and pricing for rentals
- Vehicle details for car rentals
Its itinerary builder is robust, and features like iCal sync for hotels/rentals are essential for those markets. Contrarily, WP Travel Engine excels in tour-specific features. But, the specialized options of Tourfic for multiple verticals give it an advantage if your business includes more than just tours. So, its ability to manage these distinct booking requirements within one plugin shows that it’s a winner.
- Customization & Extendability
We agree that both plugins offer customization options. Still, the flexible framework of Tourfic and more use of shortcodes and widgets showcases that it is highly adaptable. Similarly, its design elements are modern, and compatibility with page builders helps for significant layout control.
The architecture of the Tourfic plugin is well-suited for WordPress developers who are looking to build complex and multifaceted travel sites or marketplaces. Interestingly, the clean code and available hooks provide excellent extendability. It doesn’t mean WP Travel Engine is not extendable. It is a great option in this factor, too.
But, the foundation of Tourfic is built to handle diverse content types from the start. That’s the reason why it offers greater inherent flexibility for broader customization needs.
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
Search engine optimization (SEO) is vital to visibility in Google. For this purpose, WP Travel Engine includes SEO-friendly markup and works with major SEO plugins like Yoast and Rank Math. This compatibility with other SEO plugins helps trips rank higher.
On the other hand, Tourfic also prioritizes SEO. It offers compatibility with a broader range of SEO plugins including Yoast SEO, Rank Math, AIOSEO, and SEOPress. This wider compatibility provides users more flexibility in optimizing their travel content for search results. Plus, the extensive integration of Tourfic options give it an edge in the SEO factor.
So…the winner is Tourfic when you are considering the Search Engine Optimization factor. Its broader compatibility with SEO plugins offers greater optimization potential. In addition to the above, it offers Rich Schema Markup, which helps search engines like Google to understand and rank your content on the first page.
Conclusion: WP Travel Engine Alternative
Both WP Travel Engine and Tourfic provide reliable solutions for constructing a travel booking website on WordPress. However, if you’re looking for a plugin that combines user-friendliness, robust features, customization flexibility, and top-tier support—all without overcomplicating things—Tourfic clearly takes the lead.
WP Travel Engine may still be a reliable option for some, but Tourfic’s modern approach, WooCommerce integration, and seamless user experience make it the smarter, future-ready choice for travel agencies, tour operators, and hotel booking platforms alike.
So, if you’re ready to move beyond limitations and elevate your travel website to the next level, it’s time to switch to Tourfic—the best WP Travel Engine alternative you’ve been searching for.
