Cătălin Mihai Huiban runs Bike.City out of Bucharest, Romania, together with his father. The two of them have spent years renting electric bicycles to food delivery couriers around the city, but this year they branched out into something new: bike rental for tourists.
The idea came from watching visitors struggle to get around Bucharest comfortably, and Cătălin saw an opportunity to offer electric bikes matched to each rider’s height, weight, age, and gender, delivered straight to their hotel with a digital map of routes, cafés, and local sights.
German travelers make up a big share of the customer base so far, alongside other tourists looking for an easy, eco-friendly way to see the city. To get the new side of the business off the ground, Cătălin built a booking website using Booqable’s website builder and set up Booqable as the back office running everything behind it, from online availability and bookings to payments.
Since the food courier side of the business runs on WhatsApp and word of mouth, this was the first time Cătălin needed a proper rental system, and he chose Booqable to handle it from day one.
Building a bike rental website without a developer
Cătălin didn’t have a website for the tourist rental business before Booqable, and he didn’t have the time or budget to hire someone to build one either. Bike rental customers, especially tourists booking ahead of a trip, expect to check availability and book online, so going without a website wasn’t really an option.
Booqable’s website builder let him put one together himself, using templates, a custom domain, and a built-in date picker so customers can see what’s free before they commit. The product catalogue shows off the electric bikes and accessories, with real-time availability pulled straight from the back office. Cătălin said the online store became the bridge between his business and his customers without requiring a lot of technical knowledge, and it’s still his favorite part of Booqable.
For him, the feature does three things:
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Gives Bike.City a professional online presence without hiring a developer
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Lets customers browse bikes and check availability on their own
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Connects bookings directly to the back office so nothing has to be entered twice
The website builder solved his original problem by giving tourists a way to book a bike rental before they even land in Bucharest. That’s meant fewer back and forth messages and a smoother start for a new business built from scratch.
Taking online payments from international bike rental customers
Before Booqable, Cătălin had no way to take payments from tourists booking a bike rental online, which is a problem when most of your customers are arriving from another country and want to pay before they show up. Booqable’s built in Stripe integration connects directly to the online store, so payments made at checkout sync automatically with the booking in the back office.
PayPal is also connected, giving international visitors another option they already trust. Cătălin said accepting online payments through Stripe and PayPal made the booking process much easier for international tourists, and he’s hoping to add Tap to Pay once it works with his Android device.
In practice, this setup:
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Lets tourists pay in advance instead of handling cash on arrival
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Keeps payment records tied to each booking automatically
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Gives customers confidence that their bike rental is confirmed before they travel
Being able to take a payment the moment someone books has removed one more thing Cătălin had to manage by hand. It also means a tourist can lock in their bike rental from home, days before they ever set foot in Bucharest.
Building Bike.City one booking at a time
Cătălin still has plenty of Booqable features left to try, from QR codes to online contracts, but he’s kept things simple on purpose, with customers accepting terms and conditions at checkout instead of signing paperwork.
As he put it, even with the features he currently uses, Booqable made launching the tourist rental business much easier. He’s not chasing rapid growth either. His goal is a trusted, high quality bike rental service for visitors to Bucharest, with a small team, a strong reputation, and a website that keeps working for him while he and his father focus on the bikes themselves.
