Bookings Use Case: Fishing Lake Rental

Set up 12-hour and 24-hour fishing cabin rentals that share a ten-person capacity. A booking on either product reduces the spaces available on the other product for overlapping times.

Scenario

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Alder Lake Fishing offers three rental options: daytime from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm, overnight from 7:00 pm to 7:00 am, and a full 24 hours from 7:00 am to 7:00 am the next day. The cabin can accommodate ten people at once.

Use two bookable products and one shared resource. The 12-hour product offers the daytime and overnight starts; the 24-hour product offers the full-day start. Each person uses one space in the shared resource. Separate groups can book overlapping visits until all ten spaces are taken. This setup does not reserve the whole cabin exclusively for each group.

Setup and configuration

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Before you begin, install and activate WooCommerce and WooCommerce Bookings. Confirm the store timezone under Settings > General; the example uses America/Los Angeles. Check that existing store availability rules allow the full overnight period. Use a test site to check the setup before offering it to customers.

Configure the two products as follows. Use hours for both durations so each booking has a start time, including the 24-hour option.

Setting	12-hour product	24-hour product
Booking duration	Fixed blocks of 12 hours	Fixed blocks of 24 hours
First block starts at	7:00 am	7:00 am
Available starts	7:00 am and 7:00 pm	7:00 am
Shared resource quantity	10	The same resource
Persons per booking	1 to 10	1 to 10
Example base cost	100	150

Create the shared cabin resource

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1. Go to Bookings > Resources and select Add Resource.
2. Enter Alder Lake Fishing Cabin as the resource name.
3. Set Available Quantity to 10. This represents ten people, rather than ten cabins.
4. Select Publish. Use this same resource for both products; creating two resources with the same name would give them separate capacities.

Create the 12-hour product

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1. Go to Products > Add new product and name the product Alder Lake Fishing – 12 Hours.
2. Choose Bookable product in Product data. Enable Virtual, Has persons, and Has resources.
3. On the General tab, set Booking duration to Fixed blocks of 12 Hour(s) and Calendar display mode to Calendar always visible.
4. On the Resources tab, enter Cabin in Label and choose Automatically assigned under Resources are…. Select the existing Alder Lake Fishing Cabin resource and select Add/link Resource. Leave its additional resource costs at zero.
5. Leave Share max bookings per block? unchecked. That option shares a product allowance across its resources; this example shares one resource across two products.

1. On the Availability tab, set All dates are… to available by default and Check rules against… to All blocks being booked.
2. Set First block starts at… to 7:00 am and Require a buffer period of to 0. The 12-hour duration produces starts at 7:00 am and 7:00 pm. Do not add unavailable time ranges between these starts: the whole booking must remain available.
3. Set your minimum and maximum booking window. This example allows bookings from today through six months ahead.
4. On the Persons tab, set Min persons to 1 and Max persons to 10, then enable Count persons as bookings. Leave Multiply all costs by person count and Enable person types unchecked for this flat group price.
5. On the Costs tab, set Base cost to 100 and leave Block cost at 0. The example store uses US dollars. Configure taxes to suit your business; the example prices exclude tax.
6. Select Publish.

Create the 24-hour product

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1. Create another Bookable product named Alder Lake Fishing – 24 Hours. Enable Virtual, Has persons, and Has resources.
2. On General, choose Fixed blocks of 24 Hour(s) and Calendar always visible.
3. On Resources, choose Automatically assigned and link the same Alder Lake Fishing Cabin resource. Leave additional resource costs at zero and Share max bookings per block? unchecked.
4. Apply the same Availability settings as the 12-hour product, including All blocks being booked, no buffer, and a first block at 7:00 am. Do not add unavailable time ranges. A 24-hour duration gives one start each day, at 7:00 am.
5. Set Min persons to 1 and Max persons to 10, and enable Count persons as bookings. Leave the person cost multiplier and person types unchecked.
6. Set Base cost to 150 and Block cost to 0, then select Publish.

Check the customer view

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Open both products on your test storefront and select a future date. The 12-hour product should offer 7:00 am and 7:00 pm; the 24-hour product should offer only 7:00 am. Select a time and check the booking cost before adding it to the cart.

Next, create a confirmed seven-person booking for the 24-hour product on your test site. For the same date, both 12-hour starts should have three spaces left. A request for three people should remain available, while a request for four should be rejected. Adding another confirmed three-person booking for that 24-hour period should make both 12-hour starts unavailable.

In the example below, confirmed bookings fill all ten spaces from October 28 at 7:00 am through October 29 at 7:00 am. October 28 is unavailable in the 12-hour product. October 29 is selected and can be booked from 7:00 am again.

If the result does not match

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If the products do not share capacity, check that both link to the same resource ID, use automatic resource assignment, and have Count persons as bookings enabled. Confirm the resource quantity is ten and check the status, dates, and person count of the test bookings.

If expected times are missing, check the fixed duration, first block time, booking window, buffer, and availability rules on the store, resource, and product. An unavailable period within the booking can prevent the whole visit from being booked. If the cost changes with group size, check that Multiply all costs by person count is unchecked.