Plenty of rental websites look fine. Nice photos, a clean logo, a font that matches the brand. And they still lose bookings, because looking fine and converting a browser into a guest are two different jobs, and most templates were only built for the first one.
Where bookings actually get lost
It is rarely the design. It is usually somewhere between the photo gallery and the booking button: too many clicks to check a date, a calendar that does not match what is actually available, or a mobile layout that makes someone give up and go check Airbnb instead.
- Availability that is not synced in real time, so guests hit a dead end after they have already picked their dates
- A booking flow that takes more taps on a phone than it should, when most traffic is mobile
- No clear answer to the questions a guest actually has: is it walkable to the beach, is there parking, what is the cancellation policy
What I actually build
A real site, not a template stretched to fit. That means a booking flow tested on an actual phone, availability wired up to whatever system you already run bookings through, and a layout built around the handful of questions every guest has before they hand over a deposit.
It also means something you can update yourself. Swapping a photo or fixing a typo should not mean waiting on a developer, and it should not mean learning a complicated system either.