For users of the TourCMS tour operator ecommerce platform
Improved hotel functionality project - April 2010
Really appreciate feedback from everyone who uses the hotel functionality within TourCMS....
Here is what we are proposing to do at the most basic:
* Change web facing hotel booking process to enable multiple hotel rooms to be booked on one screen - rather than looping through individual screens
* Hotel availability API - bring back data in the XML API (based on searching for a specific date). Could be a multiple hotel availability search (multiple hotels within a single TourCMS account)
SUGGESTIONS & QUESTIONS
Any of these would be useful to you?
1) The longer you stay, the lower the cost per night
By way of example: 3 nights = £245 pn, 4 nights = £201pn, 5 nights = £174pn, 6 nights = £157pn, 7 nights = £144pn.
2) Child ages - ABLE to set child ages per hotel (rather than by account). Do we also need a 3rd child age level? (At the moment it is Adult / child rates only). Bear in mind that if we make price dependent upon age we are going to have to ask for age categories at the start of the booking process.
3) Warning on staff booking when proposed hotel is under the minimum stay requirements (The hotel won't show online hence consumers won't book under the minimum stay).
4) Rooming list report - Enter a date - and the report comes back with who is staying in what rooms
5) Discounts - what kind of discounts would be helpful to handle as a simple "tick" type - i.e. 7 nights for the price of 5 etc? (Fixed discounts can be handled using options)
PLEASE ADD YOUR REQUIREMENTS TO THIS FORUM DISCUSSION
Thanks!
FYI
* New calendar display of dates coming on step 1 of the booking engine as a separate project
* Next release has a switch to remove board basis codes from display - if you don't use them
Other roadmap developments see here
Views: 7
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Mircea Chiru on -
Dear Alex ,
Regarding the above :
1) I consider that clients will find more easy to retain promotions like " stay 10 pay 8 nights " than to specify amounts.
Yes, indeed at the end , when he makes the booking , you will have to give a price...
2) Bulgarian seaside seems to become more and more popular also between British and also the Romanian customers and our agency offer (also) accommodation on the Bulgarian seaside.
Prices between categories of children differs .I would be happy to be able to insert in the system the following reductions :
Reductions:
- children 0-2 yrs old - free of charge;
- child 2-12 yrs old on regular bed in double room - 50 % discount;
- child 2-12 yrs old on extra bed in double room - stays for free.
- first or second 2-12 yrs old on extra bed in apartment or studio - 75 % discount;
- child 2-12 years on extra bed in family room with 3 adults - 75% discount;
- 4-th adult on extra bed family room pays the full price of the bed;
- adult on extra bed in double room - full price, not recommended;
- adult on extra bed in apartment or studio - 20 % discount;
So my answer is Yes ( at least in my case : Yes ,it would be useful to be able to book this categories ).
If other colleagues have also third age level for children I propose the following :
Every account to be able to define their rooms type capacity .
You create max. rooms capacity as (ex.) : " 1adult + 1 child " " 2 adults and 2 children " " 2 adults and one child "
" 2 adults + extrabed ".
When you create the room for that particular hotel and you have to specify the max that specific room would allow , you just have to mention it either through a drop-down menu , or in other form ( a good example is when you add the countries the tours go through ).
I find this more easy to create a room as will go smoother to create it ( because usually a room accepts let's say only a 2 adults + one child ).
Another proposal is for "add prices by date band" . I would suggest to create one single table where you specify all the rates for the whole year (or years) by rate band .
ex.
Room type - Standard Room
From / To / Gross price per ( here drop down menu for room / person ) / Net price (drop down)
01.01.2010 01.04.2010 / 30 GBP / 25 GBP
02.04.2010 - 07.06.2010 / 50 GBP/ 40 GBP
08.06.2010 - 15.07.2010 /70 GBP /60 GBP
16.07.2010 - 20.09.2010 /60 GBP/ 50 GBP
Upload/Update ALL prices button HERE.
.
If you can create also a button for mark up the supplier costs it would be wonderful - you just introduce the supplier costs for each rate band and pressing one button will fill and marked up prices in their respective places .
The mark-up could be in fix amount ( 10 GBP ) mark up or percentage ( 10 % ) - choose this by drop down menu.
Following the above I consider that a lot of our colleagues will find that is more easily to load prices in a single entry (like above ) than to enter each room / each rate band separately .
And after you load the rates you possibly could also export the table ( of periods/ rooms / prices ) on your website so your customer could see at a glance in which period is more convenient for him (:-)
3) Warning on staff booking - yes I find this useful.
4) Rooming list report - would be useful also.
5) Discounts - YES !
I have the following type of discounts :
"7 nights for the price of 5"
early booking discounts as " book until the 1 April and you will benefit of 10 % discounts "
Children/ adults on extra bed discounts - as explained above (...:-)
"* Early booking offer:
- 20% for all reservations made and paid until 31 March 2010!
- 15% for all reservations made and paid until 15 May 2010!
* Extras:
14=12, 11=9, 10=8, 7=6 during 10 May - 15 June 2010; 11 Sep - 10 Oct 2010.
* The Early Booking Offer can be combined with other offers! "
See here so you will see I'm not inventing :-)) http://www.beachbulgaria.com/golden_sands/edelweiss_hotel_en.html
I just want to figure out how would I could load these reductions...
And.. not at least .. would be wonderful to have this tours facility also for hotel rates (http://www.tourcms.com/support/configsetup_screencasts/excel_mass_d...)
I know that each of us have particular cases and I just presented mine...
Hope you could help .
Have a very nice evening , Mircea
-
Permalink Reply by YANNIS ARRENOPOULOS on -
Suggestions on the above 5 points:
1. It might be interesting a promotion ''The more you stay the less you pay'' and definatelly this will help us integrate it.
2. In our case there are special children prices depending on their age. An infant 0-2,99 is almost always free of charge, two other children categories we find is 0-6 yrs and 0-12 years which are pay either 0 or 50% of half double.
3.Good idea
4.Good idea. it will be even more helpfull if we can categorize results by adding a location on report criteria. So, we can have a rooming list report per hotel per town. So, for us that we are doing incoming we can control how many inividual clients staying in a particular town so we can issue a promotion of a special tour to propose it to them.
5. Book 7 nights get 10% discount, Book 10 nights and get an activity/tour/car hire/transfer/free room upgrade/a dinner free of charge or on 50% discount.
Some older requests:
Availability management
Different number of rooms available to different periods
1. Different minimum notice (release) to different periods
2.An availability report that could gives me info regarding the coverage of allotment in each hotel and which of my partners should be more promoted to push its sales further.
3..Alarm (probably with a flag or ever better with an email towards to us and to hotelier) when the availability in a hotel is run off
Client management
Alarm them automatically for confirmed bookings that they will soon reach a period that cannot be cancelled without paying cancelation fees.
4. Ability to amend a confirmed booking or cancel it in case they have not print a voucher yet.
5. Ability to have a ''shopping basket'' where they can find all bookings made and info regarding their bookings and within which they can receive and deliver all bookings related communications.
-
Permalink Reply by Actief in Tsjechie on -
Hi Alex,
We too have different ages categories, some hotels have their 50% discount threshold at 12 years and some at 14 years.
Also the concept of stay 3 pay 2 etc. we see a lot.
Regards, Luit
-
Permalink Reply by Actief in Tsjechie on
-
Hi Alex,
Maybe an obvious contribution to this topic, but nevertheless, here I go: If multiple rooms are added to a booking the in the text itinerary table the result looks quite odd (x times the same information). Somehow the rooms should be a agregated to one tour/hotel (sharing the same pick up drop off information). Good luck!
Regards, Luit
-
Permalink Reply by Dana Ronan on -
Hi Alex,
Thanks for the webinar in Australian time the other night/morning. It was very useful. Widgets look great.
A cool piece of functionality I saw in another system was the ability to set up a room configuration in several different ways and link them together so that when one type was sold, it removed the others from sale.
ie: our lodge rooms can be configured as dbl (2 people) or twin (2 people) or divided as single x 2 rooms. If one person buys a single room, it means the dbl and the twin aren't available, but a single room still is.
I guess it almost means you set up three times the inventory but it automatically closes out as sales occur.
With regards other components, we use discounts in the same way as Mircea outlined above.
We usually set up group discounts as an option or maually adjust not through the group pricing function because we don't put all people from the same group in one booking as they all want their own invoices etc.. They usually have a booking per couple. Every one wants to be a lead customer.
© 2012 Created by TourCMS team.
