How to Configure Checkout Settings in WP Travel Engine

When a traveler picks a trip and clicks "Book Now," they land on your checkout page. This is where they enter their details and pay. The settings here let you manage traveler details, show emergency contact fields, customize the message shown after booking, and handle privacy and data compliance.

Before you start

You'll need WP Travel Engine installed and active on your WordPress site. If you can see WP Travel Engine in the left-hand menu of your dashboard, you're ready to go.

Opening the checkout settings

You're now looking at the checkout settings. Let's go through each one.

Booking Confirmation Message

After a traveler finishes booking, you can show them a message confirming everything went through. Type your message into the Book Confirmation Message field.

Say you run adventure tours and want travelers to know what happens next. You might write something like: "You're all set! We'll email you a packing list and departure details within 24 hours. Questions? Call us at 555-1234."

The message appears on screen right after they submit the checkout form. It's a good spot to set expectations and make travelers feel looked after.

Choosing a Checkout Page Layout

You have two layout options: Default and New.

• Default is the original checkout design that came with the plugin.
• New gives your checkout page a cleaner, more modern look.

Both layouts work the same way behind the scenes. The difference is how they look. Pick whichever one fits the style of your site.

A "layout" here means the visual arrangement of the page: where the booking form sits, how the trip summary appears, and so on. Think of it like choosing a template for a printed brochure. Same information, different presentation.

Each layout also comes with its own options for collecting traveler information. The next two sections cover what you get with each one.

Default Layout: Traveler Information

The Default layout gives you one main option for collecting traveler details:

• Show Traveller's Information: Turn this on to make it mandatory to collect details for every traveler on the booking. After someone checks out, they'll need to fill in information for each person. Once this is on, you also get a second toggle to request emergency contact details for each traveler.

Say you run a 5-day group trek and need each person's dietary restrictions plus an emergency contact back home. You'd turn on both of these.

New Layout: Traveler Information

The New layout gives you more control over how and when you collect traveler details:

• Show Traveller Information Form: Turn this on to collect traveler details after checkout. Without this, no traveler information is collected at all.
• Show Emergency Contact Details: This toggle appears once traveler information is turned on. Turn it on to collect emergency contact details for each person on the booking.
• Display Traveller and Emergency Details: This lets you choose where travelers fill in their information. They can do it right on the checkout page, or after they finish paying. Filling it out on the checkout page means everything is collected in one go. Moving it to after checkout means a faster checkout, but travelers will need to come back and fill in their details.
• Collect Traveller Information: Choose whether to collect details for everyone on the booking or only the person making the booking. If you run a family day tour and only need the lead booker's info, pick Only Lead Traveller. For a group trek where every participant's details matter, pick All Travellers.

If you want more control over how and when you collect traveler info, the New layout is the better choice. If you prefer to keep things straightforward and don't mind the classic look, Default works fine.

Settings That Work With Both Layouts

No matter which layout you pick, these four settings are available:

Don't forget to click Save Changes at the bottom of the settings page when you're done. It's a common habit to set everything up and move on without saving, so it's worth a quick check.

Using the New Checkout Page Template

If you chose the New layout, there's one more step. WP Travel Engine includes a dedicated page template that gives the checkout page its updated design. You'll need to apply it to the page where your checkout lives.

A "page template" controls how a specific page looks. Think of it as a frame that WordPress wraps around your content. In this case, the frame is built specifically for checkout pages.

That covers the main setup. If you're comfortable with the basics and want more control over how the checkout page is built, the next section covers shortcodes. But if the steps above are all you need, you can stop here.

Shortcodes for Building a Custom Checkout Page

A "shortcode" is a small piece of text wrapped in brackets that WordPress replaces with content when the page loads. You type the shortcode, and WordPress swaps in the actual booking form, trip summary, or whatever the shortcode stands for.

If you want to design your checkout page from scratch instead of using the template above, you can place these shortcodes wherever you'd like the content to appear:

To use one, go to Dashboard > Pages > Add New, add a Shortcode block, and paste the shortcode for the piece you want. In the block editor, click the + button and search for "shortcode" to find the block.