Florence On Line

Florence On Line, a travel website specializing in tourism in Florence, Italy, contacted YesItCan.be with a request for a Movable Type based hotel directory.
Each week, a massive XML file with hotel information would be delivered by a content partner, and this mass of data had to be converted into Movable Type entries so visitors of the site could search, rate and comment on them.  Also, the information needed to be kept up to date automatically.

YesItCan.be created a custom loader script that automatically parsed the data and inserted it as Movable Type entries (with many custom fields), using the main areas of the city where the hotels were located in as categories.  If entries already existed for a particular accomodation, they would get updated (preserving comments and ratings of course).  Once all the data was refreshed, the site would be automatically republished too.

In order to make all the data searchable and easy to navigate, custom Movable Type templates were created that made use of the Datatables jQuery plugin to present the data in an easy to use format.

Below are some screenshots from the site:

florence-main-list.png

The full list of hotels


florence-area-hotels.png

Hotel listing in a particular area


florence-hotel.png

Individual hotel page