Creating a new hotel contract

This topic explains how to create hotel contracts.

Hotel contracts are negotiated between travel companies (both tour operators and travel agencies), and individual hotels or tour operators. Once the contract is negotiated you can enter the terms into the system, and sell/request rooms in the hotel through the Reservations System.

When building the contract, you will add a price list, which can include multiple markets, seasons, room types, and components. The price list can include standard components (single and double rooms), and complex room options (family plan, pay/stay declarations, and free of charge for groups).

The hotel contract is comprised of up to five tabs:

• Hotel: Product information, such as hotel name, destination, address, suppliers, transfers (if relevant), facilities, images to be displayed in the Reservations System, and advanced definitions.

• Price List: The price list for FIT rates

• (Optional) Price List - Group Rate: The price list for group rates, which is used with Calculation Sheets, Self-operation Tours, and group travel files

• (Optional) Price List - Package Rate: The price list for package rates, which is used with Static Packages, Bundling Wizard, and dynamic packages

• Allocation: Allocation details, including freesale, release terms and, sub-allocations.

• Requirements

Mandatory requirements

• Supplier accounts: Both service provider and the supplier paid.

This depends on the supplier. If you are signing a contract with a tour operator, you need to create the supplier account in advance. If the contract is with the individual hotel, you can create the supplier account while building the hotel contract.

• Destinations: The hotel destination

Optional requirements

• Locations: The hotel location, such as beachfront, city center, or business district

• Service Attribute: The service attribute, which is primarily used for defining sub-services, such as villas or apartments

• Add on transfers: This information can include the transfer location, and transfer contracts. With some hotels transfers are a mandatory requirement. Others will offer a transfer to customers staying a minimum number of nights.

• Hotel Facilities: There are two types of facilities: those included in the hotel area and those included in the rooms. The hotel facilities can include the 16 hardcoded facilities in the system, such as swimming pool and pets allowed, as well as any additional facilities you feel the need to define, such as luggage, storage or non smoking rooms.

• Pictures: Hotel images, which are displayed in the Reservations System, in the search results and in the Hotel Details page. The image size for the search results image should be 186 pixels wide by 184 pixels high. The image size for the Hotel Details images should be 1,000 pixels wide by 580 pixels high. The file type should be *jpg or *jpeg.

• Markets: Markets are used to define different rates for separate groups of corporate clients/travel agents or customers. For example, the travel company can offer the hotel a high volume of customers from Poland. These customers receive a 15% reduced rate on standard price levels from the supplier. In the price list you will create two markets with two separate price levels: All and Poland. The Poland market will receive a 15% reduced rate on standard rooms, which is not offered to the rest of the customers who belong to the All market. You can define the markets  in advance, or create them when creating the contract.

• Season: The periods in which the prices are valid. With hotels, you need to define multiple seasons to correspond to the peak and off-peak months. Since hotel contracts are ongoing, you will be constantly adding new seasons to your price list, while expired seasons are automatically hidden. You can create the seasons in advance, or create them when creating the contract.

• Price levels: The different room types, such as standard room or superior room.

• Price components: The price components are the different components that make up the price of the hotel room. Each price level can be comprised of up to three component types: main (the actual room), supplement (extras, such as porterage), and board basis (meal plans, such as bed & breakfast or room only). You can create the price components in advance (in Setup - Product Definitions - Price Components), or create them when creating the contract. Basic components are hardcoded in the system. You also have the option of defining Family Plan price components, for rooms (or groups of rooms) that are priced per family (as opposed to per person).

• How

1. Go to Products - Contracts.

   

2. Click Click here to add a new item, and select New Hotel.

   A new item page opens in the Hotel tab.

   

3. In the General expander:

   1. In the Name field, enter the name of the hotel, or click the Select button to select a hotel from the Hotel Details module.

      If you select an existing hotel that hotel's details are automatically inserted into the contract.

   2. In the Reservations are made with field, select either Hotel Directly or Supplier, and select the supplier account.

   3. In the Payments are reconciled with field, select either Hotel Directly or Supplier, and select the supplier account.

      If you select hotel directly, after saving the contract, a supplier account is created for the hotel.

4. In the Product Information section:

   1. Mandatory. In the Destination field, select the hotel destination.

   2. In the Location field, select the hotel location.

   3. Mandatory. In the Category field, select the hotel category.

   4. With hotels, the categories are the star based rating system, which can be customized in Setup - Website Definitions - Content - Services - Hotel. If you want to display the customized categories, select Display customized hotel categories.

   5. In the Attribute field, select the service attribute.

   6. In the e-mail field, enter the e-mail address used for contacting the hotel.

5. If the hotel has an add-on transfer (otherwise skip to the next step), in the Transfer section:

   1. If you want to use the same transfer contract for multiple hotels in the same location, in the Transport Location field, select the transfer location.

   2. To add an add-on transfer to the contract, select Add-on transfer:

   3. Choose one of the following options:

      • Select from list of transfers: During the reservation process, the customer is prompted to select a transfer from all available transfers.

      • Specific transfer: Select specific transfer contracts to attach to the hotel contract:

      • 1. To add an inbound transfer, click Click here to select an Inbound Transport.

           The Add Transport dialog box appears.

           

        2. Enter the relevant search parameters for the transfer, and click Find.

        Parameter	Description
        Destination	The destination of the transfer contract. This is a mandatory field.
        Name	The contract name
        Supplier	The supplier of the transfer contract
        Category	The category of the transfer contract
        Price Level	The price level of the transfer contract

        Transfer contracts matching the search criteria are displayed in the results section.

        

        3. To add a transfer to the contract, click Add.

        4. To add an outbound transfer, click Click here to add an Outbound transfer, and repeat steps ii-iii.

   4. In the Transfer price field, select whether the cost of the transfer is Included in the hotel selling price , or is Added on to the hotel selling price.

   5. If the transfer only applies to a reservation made for a minimum number of nights, in the Applies to minimum nights field, enter the minimum number of nights to which the transfer applies.

6. In the Address & Phones section, enter the hotel's address and phone numbers.

This information is displayed on vouchers issued to the service provider.

You can also enter longtitude and latitude information, which may be relevant for hotels with no address.

7. Select the Hotel facilities and description expander.

   

   The information in this expander and the Price Level facilities and description appear in the Reservations system, in the Hotel Details page, below the price levels, in the Hotel Description section.

Click here for an image.

1. In the Number of Rooms field, enter the number of rooms in the hotel.

2. In the Information field, enter a description of the hotel.

3. In the Hotel Facilities section, select the hotel facilities you want to display in the Hotel Description.

You can create additional facilities by clicking the Add New Facility button.

8. Select the Price Level facilities and description expander.

   

   Repeat the following steps for each price level you want to display in the Hotel Description, below the hotel facilities:

   The price levels you define here should have the same names as the price levels you define in the price list.

   1. In the Price Level field, select the price level.

   2. In the Information field, enter a description of the price level.

   3. In the Room Facilities section, select the facilities you want to display for the price level in the Hotel Description.

      To add additional price levels, click Add Price Level. To delete a price level, click Delete Price Level. You can create additional facilities by clicking the Add New Facility button.

9. Select the Description File / Pictures expander. It is possible to upload Price List Descriptions in different languages. This way, you can define different files in different languages, so that the product will be displayed in the user language in the Reservation System.

   

   The HTML description is currently not applicable.

   1. To upload thumbnail images which are displayed in the Reservations System, in the search results, and the Hotel Details page, click Add a New Picture.

      A radio button appears in which you can upload the image.

   2. Click Browse, and select the image you want to upload.

   3. In the Title field, enter the image title.

   4. Repeat steps c-e for each image you want to upload.

   5. Select the image to display as the thumbnail image that appears in the search results, the rest of the images are displayed in the Hotel Details page.

10. Select the Advanced Definitions expander.

    

11. In the Voucher and Transaction Definitions section, the fields are initialized according to the definitions in the Supplier Paid's supplier account. However, you can edit these fields if necessary. Editing the fields in the contract does not affect the definitions in the supplier's account.

12. In the Display in Booking System section, you can promote the hotel in the search results that appear in the Reservations System:

    • In the Priority field, select the priority by which to display the hotel.

    Click here for more information on hotel priority in the search results. 1 is the highest priority. 9 is the lowest priority. In the Reservations System - when sorting hotels according to Recommended - hotels with priority 1 are displayed first, followed by 2, 3, 4, until 9. Prioritized hotels are also displayed in the Reservations System with a "most popular" icon. Following the display of the recommended hotels, all other hotels without a priority definition are displayed according to price in ascending order.

    • Select Always on top to display the hotel first, regardless of the sorting method in the Reservations System.

    • Select Display hotel when there are no available allocations to display hotels even when allocations are no longer available. In this case, the hotel will be displayed with a RQ status. (This overrides the definitions at Website Definitions).

13. In the Season Booking Method section:

• If you want the minimum/maximum nights to be calculated according to the nights in each season, select Stay nights according to min/max range of each season. Otherwise the minimum/maximum nights will be calculated according to the total nights queried.

Click here for an example. In season A, there is no limit on the number of nights that can be reserved (1-99). In season B, customers are required to reserve a minimum of five nights. When making a reservation for six nights - two in season A and four in season B: If the option is selected, the number of nights is checked for each season, and the hotel cannot be reserved because season B's minimum requirement is not met. If the option is not selected, the hotel can be reserved because the total number of nights is six, which meets the minimum requirement for Season B.

• If you want the room pricing to be calculated according to the min/max range in each season separately, select Price nights according to min/max range of each season. Otherwise in each season, the price will be calculated according to the total nights queried.

Click here for an example. In season A, the price for a standard room is as follows: 1-4 nights: 120 USD per night 5-99 nights: 110 USD per night In season B, the price for a standard room is as follows: 1-4 nights: 100 USD per night 5-99 nights: 90 USD per night If a customer is making a reservation for seven nights - two nights from season A, and five nights from season B. If the option is selected: The price is calculated using the 1-4 price from season A (120 USD per night), and the 5-99 price for season B (90 USD per night). If the option is not selected: The price is calculated using the 5-99 price in both seasons (110 USD per night for the first two nights, and 90 USD per night for the last five nights).

14. In the Booking Channel, select whether the hotel should be displayed in the B2B selling channel, the B2C selling channel, or Both.

    The Time Limits section is not relevant for hotel contracts.

15. In the Gross Prices section, select how to calculate the selling price:

    • Based on this price list's definitions: Both the net and selling price are taken from the price list during the query process.

    • Based on the Business Rules Markup Definitions: The net price is taken from the price list, and the business rules are added to it to create the selling price.

16. If you have special rates for groups or packages, in the Special Rates section, select which special rates to enable.

17. In the VAT section:

    1. If the hotel price includes VAT, in the Price Includes VAT field, select Yes.

    2. If the VAT percentage is different from the system default, in the Include VAT percentage different from system default field, enter the correct VAT percentage.

    This section is only relevant if you are working according to the Sales and Purchases accounting method.

18. Click Save, and continue to create the price list for the hotel contract.

Related links

• Products - Contracts

• Creating a price list for a hotel contract

• Editing a price list for a hotel contract

• Adding allocations to a hotel contract