IOS Reservation Feature Questions

[datahell]

Every business does work on a different model.....

This is the biggest problem of the reservations system. If I developed it for a single customer it would be perfect as it would fit 100% his needs. But different people have different needs which in some cases varies a lot. So, I will try to add as many as possible extra options in order to cover most people needs and some of the "strange hotels on the top of the mountains" needs.

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Datahell said in another thread:

I am also checking an option of adding a user uploaded image as a replacement of the google map.

I really think this is a must (as I too suggested in a previous thread but mentioned a map in flash) since google maps are not detailed. If a user uploaded map in jpg, bmp, flash or whatever is uploaded they can give more details of the area such as local shops, sights, museums, taxi stands etc

See the google map here: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/vietnam/hanoi#
Maybe like this where you can "zoom" (not really zoom in the sense of the word) and give users the option to print maps etc

aiden11 said:

Code: [Select]

What about an internal affiliate option? this will boost traffic for the hotel portals !?Care to elaborate? Do you mean something like a non-guest account, where say, other travels agents or the like can come to your website/system and get prices of hotels for a cheaper rate? I think an affliate program like this would be good, so I have a customer rate and also a agent rate. 

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This is just an idea:

Scenario: Tourist wants to travel to country X and see cities Y & Z. So that is two hotels, y1 & z1, since he is exploring the country he may want to see more many more cities and thus needs hotel for each city, is it possible to book multiple hotels, in ONE RESERVATION/sessions. You can see, this is more in line with a tour package.

Alternatively,   one would have to book each hotel for each city and thus many different reservations for the same person?

[datahell]

I have also thought the multiple reservations in one session many times. Such a feature will add shopping cart functionality to IOS Reservations which is something that I don't want. I will think again of it. A step to this direction made by adding add-on services.

As for the image map, it has already been implemented. See the attached screen shot.
Note also that you have now the option to allow comments only to hotel customers.

[ks-net]

made by adding add-on services.

this is something needed...

also...  hostels(not hotels) uses keys instead of stars in Greece. we are not allowed to use stars(as an alternative)... and we are obligated to announce everywhere we list(especially for  reservations) our hostels the number of keys 

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Wow this only gets better!   I'm thrilled. Once again, all of your IOS Reservation users out there, who are using this software, this is your golden opportunity to tell Datahell, what you guys want in the new version of IOS Reservation 3.0! This is customer feed back at it's best, at the time of development, you will not get this opportunity until, the next upgrade!  I don't even use the software (well, not yet anyway) and I'm trying my best to think of features this software could benefit from. There is no software like this in this category!

Are you reluctant on the multiple reservation in one session due to the programming aspect of it or as a functional requirement? I would say the former, but, having extra services such as breakfast, pick-up service etc is also "shopping card" functionality, albeit to a more controlled manner.

Note also that you have now the option to allow comments only to hotel customers.

Just a note or suggestion to improvement, people prefer quick easy to follow instructions etc so with regards to the comment, is there anyway of the guests to "rate" the hotel in addition to comments (one +ve & one _ve). So it could be out of 10 or out of five stars and a short comment. Or 5 stars for each of the following services:

Staff   /5   
Services /5   
Clean    /5
Comfort    /5
Value for money  /5
Total=

Just an idea or simply guests decide how good it was overall, 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 stars.  If this is implemented for IOS it would give the software a lot of breadth, quality and really above head and shoulders of any of its competitors.

More suggestions coming

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this is something needed...

also...  hostels(not hotels).......

I'll second that "needed."...i think so too

Could you confirm that the version has hostels, apartments, villas and not just hotels?

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I know you said that the new version will have new payments options, could you elaborate a bit more. Do you mean to say other than paypal, one could use other internet merchant accounts etc or do you mean from a user's perspective? If from a user's perspective than I think maybe you should consider this scenario for the "hotel on top on the top of the mountain peak" scenario. This hotel is lagging behind in the information age when it comes to communication and hence, rather than booking and paying for a hotel or automatic confirmation, maybe the system can be setup such that

1. A payment and confirmation
2. A payment and waiting for confirmation
3. An inquiry of prices and availability

This scenario may not be for the mass since you would expect all hotel to be able to connect to the system in the multiple mode but there are some hotels whose owners are over 100 years old (with their hotel on the peak of the mountain) and who cannot give the system a default number of bookings or instant availability of confirmation. 

I hope this scenario is understood, just another idea -after all it's free 

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I didn't want to create a new reply so as for you guys to think I'm spamming or anything else dubious.

I'm just trying to put this usability feature up, which is to have a reservation process map, to give the guests an assurance of where they are in the complete reservation process. It will be used after selecting the hotels, can be graphic or non-graphic.

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OK, we can use IOS R in single mode or multiple mode, where the true potential of the software is unleashed. Also looking at actual usage of most members on this forum, it seems that everyone is using the hotel in the multiple mode, and having the website as a platform for all these hotels to be showcased. In this case, this platform or venue where these hotels are showcased, are not owned by the hotel owners, but rather the website owner and it is assumed that the platform owner (as in the case with ebay, booking, expedia) charge a fee to the hotels for showcasing their hotels and hence where the actual revenue arises for these venue-providers. In that case, it is assumed, that these hotels do not control the rates of the hotels, rather the venue provider sets the rates, so the question arises does the system allow, an internal rate and an external rate? Let me clarify this more

We have hotels A, B, C in places X, Y & Z, all of them being displayed on a venue called www.wordbesthotels.com (V)

So A, B, C pay V a certain percentage or a fixed amount, and hence affecting the hotel rates on the venue, so the question is do the hotels, A, B, C control the hotel rates or the venue provider V? In that case, should V not be able to keep a record of how much profit he is making from each hotel, or if V takes payment directly from guests, how much he has to pay the hotels or vice versa, how much the hotels have to pay V, if the payments are taken by the hotels.

It'd be interesting to find out how the users actually use the system for their business model, since it is assumed you guys don't actually own the hotels on your website.

I know, I know, I'm beginning to tread the fine lines of customization and specific needs, but this is a genuine mass need, how people actually use the system for their own business rules.


Final comment for tonight before retiring is:
How are the new basic and advance search in the system? Is it flexible or rigid? Can I just set the place or do I have to specify, check-in and check-out dates (or can i be flexible and leave this open?). 

Also, I know there was a weather module, which didn't work very well according to some user feedback, so I was wondering if you were considering using a weather widget for the different regions once again. This is really trivial though.

[datahell]

Too many questions, I can not reply to all...
The sure thing is that many things will change to the front-end area. The search will change, the reservation procedure will change, the availability system already changed, statistics added ("πληρότητα δωματίου επί τοις εκατό") and more will be added, we have sub-locations support, the hotels offers add-on services, the notifications changed, customers can now select their desired payment method, more currencies are supported, commentary will be much more informational (a rating system like the one you asked), etc. The bad thing is that, most probably, the tasks related to data entry the hotel owner will be able to perform from the front-end area will be reduced (the advanced features can not be implemented in front-end). As the development is in progress I can not give final answers to all the questions but I like hearing your ideas during this procedure because the final result will be better.

The reservation procedure more likely will be in "steps". IOS Reservations will propose rooms to the customer. Here is a sample scenario.
Customer A want to visit Rome during August 1 and August 15. IOS Reservations will propose to him available rooms for this period from hotels in Rome. Customer will be able to filter the results or order them by price, etc. Customer selects his desired hotel/room. If the hotel has add-on services IOS R. will also ask him if he wants any of them. The customer signs in or registers (internal registration as IOS eshop - note: registration is required), confirms the reservation and goes to payment (if enabled). If the SMS notifications are enabled the customer will receive an SMS message when his reservation is confirmed (either after successful payment or manually by the hotelier). A new very useful addition for the hotel owners is that the hotel owners will be able to move a reservation to an other date. This will be added as a solution to the "dead" (empty) dates problem.

Example:
August 1 reserved by customer A
August 2 reserved by customer A
August 3 reserved by customer A
August 4 not reserved
August 5 reserved by customer B
August 6 reserved by customer B
August 7 not reserved

The hotel owner will be able to move the reservation made by customer B in order for the August 4 not to be a "dead date". So after this move the room availability will be like this:
August 1 reserved by customer A
August 2 reserved by customer A
August 3 reserved by customer A
August 4 reserved by customer B
August 5 reserved by customer B
August 6 not reserved
August 7 not reserved

Additionally the hotel owner will be able to reserve a room by him self in order to synchronize the system with reservations made offline.

[de-active]

Too many questions, I can not reply to all...
The sure thing is that many things will change to the front-end area. The search will change, the reservation procedure will change, the availability system already changed, statistics added ("πληρότητα δωματίου επί τοις εκατό") and more will be added, we have sub-locations support, the hotels offers add-on services, the notifications changed, customers can now select their desired payment method, more currencies are supported, commentary will be much more informational (a rating system like the one you asked), etc. The bad thing is that, most probably, the tasks related to data entry the hotel owner will be able to perform from the front-end area will be reduced (the advanced features can not be implemented in front-end). As the development is in progress I can not give final answers to all the questions but I like hearing your ideas during this procedure because the final result will be better.

It would be nice to know the statistics details, but if not I'd like to mention the following. With the statistics you may want to consider the following;
Statistics for guests, each hotel and complete statistics for the whole IOS R back-end administration system. So for each hotels we can have the following

Guests/Customers (guests is the proper terminology when referring to customers of hotels) we can collect the following details:
1. Country or County if internal customers (or Nationality for international guests or city of internal/national guests)
2. Payment method
3. etc

This will give the ability to serve the guests better, say you know that many more guests from Italy come and stay in London, than Greek guests, we can target our marketing towards Italy and maybe restructure the marketing towards Greece?

For the hotels:

Number of bookings by day, week and month

Number of nights booked, day, week, month

Type of rooms (single, double, diplomatic etc)

Cost/profit per day, week, month

Hotel can set a target for a day, week or month that they would like to achieve X number of guests or X amount of money?
This can be in the form of a graph as it is easier to digest and see the trends

Back-end Venue Administrator
With the venue or website owner or back-end administrator, you may want to include the above but for ALL the hotels data to be presented that are on the system with the opportunity to look into details of any specific hotels. So nights sold, profit, visitor numbers, transactions, conversions and commissions. Detailed statistics regarding cities booked, language of visitor, country of visitor and many more other tracking tools can be thought of. Once again displayed graphically.

Data is power! There is so much you can do once you have collected data all with the goal of providing a better service for guests, hotel and V.

The reservation procedure more likely will be in "steps". IOS Reservations will propose rooms to the customer. The customer signs in or registers (internal registration as IOS eshop - note: registration is required), confirms the reservation and goes to payment (if enabled). If the SMS notifications are enabled the customer will receive an SMS message when his reservation is confirmed (either after successful payment or manually by the hotelier). A new very useful addition for the hotel owners is that the hotel owners will be able to move a reservation to an other date. This will be added as a solution to the "dead" (empty) dates problem.

Good idea, but are you proposing rooms or hotels? I think it should be hotels, rather than rooms, this gives the flexibility. Rigidity is not good, so leave advance search options. Oh I see, you have used the SMS feature for the guests/customer? Can this not be used for the hotels, i.e from IOS R a SMS/Fax goes to the hotel, rather than the guest/customer, because the customer's confirmation is normally via email.

Additionally the hotel owner will be able to reserve a room by him self in order to synchronize the system with reservations made offline.

This is very neat indeed, but can the hotel put the offline reservation details (i.e customer details, rooms etc) on the system? Or is it just the reservations of rooms or dates ?

Even if you can't respond to my questions, queries and comment's I'll leave 'em here for you to read.

Excellent stuff Datahell!  [/list][/list][/list][/list][/list]

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Once again this question or suggestion is related to how actual users of IOS R implement the software in practise and that is not determined by whether it's a single hotel or multiple hotel usage. If single hotel, it's fine no problem, but the issue arises when it is multiple hotels, which is the case I believe with most of the example (actual) implementation. In the latter it is not one hotel but many and therefore the venue provider model is in action (could someone disagree otherwise?), where the hotels don't "own" the venue/website but the website administrator owns the website. Most of the users use this model of revenue, hence I would like to know how IOS R is either an enabler or a hindrance to this model. Is anyone following me?  As mentioned before, do you take a percentage of each sale or do you determine a pre-fixed amount of each hotel room rate?

Datahell, I really believe you should consider this evolving model, where it is not a case of using the software in a single or multiple mode (this is only relevant from a front end deployment issue), but how the actual software caters to the fundamental aspect of the business model. These can be either any one of the following:

1. A single hotel:No problem, use IOS "straight out the box" nothing else required
2. Multiple hotels: If a chain of hotels owned by the same individual or group, again can be used above, with slight "preparation" but not a big difference

3. Multiple hotels: Many hotels in a country or region, which are all independent AND it is NOT the hotels managing IOS Reservation, rather the Venue provider, travel agent or any third party who is providing this service of allowing hotels to be advertised on their website and either also payment being taken directly by the host or a fee being taken after the sales.

Scenario # 3 is what most people actually implement (if I'm wrong please point it out) and this is where IOS R has the potential to also shine above the rest of the competition, if it caters for this evolving model and by doing sol, it does not mean it will discard or neglect scenario 1 & 2, these come by default, it only enhances and gives flexibility to IOS R and it's users.

What do I mean it should cater for this evolving model? Well, first what is this model in use (just look at the thread where I ask of any live sites running IOS R and the examples I get are sites with multiple hotels in a country, where the venue/host model is used. You may ask these users or alternatively I urge all these users to come out of their shell and voice their opinion and ideas). This model is the same as expedia, booking and any other major hotel reservation system, where either a % of the sale is given to the Venue provider or a fixed, but variable, amount is taken from each sale by the Venue provider. In anycase, the Venue provider or the reservation system needs to keep a detailed "record" of these sales or transaction in a systematic way so that either the hotels or the Venue provider can be billed correctly and further offline administration processes can be facilitated for example, the Venue provider can send a fax to the hotel that $X is owned for this transaction with this reservation number or details....

I know currently IOS R has a hotel manager's reservation book method via the "manage reservation", but this very simple to say the least and only takes into account of accept or reject with reservation details, again only suitable for a single hotel or many hotels owned by the same company and not our evolved many independent hotels. I feel it should consider the above evolving model and the problems this brings about, such as % or fixed amount given/taken by the venue/hotel, if payment is outstanding to hotel/venue and many more things I can give details of it considered. But you will realize that this is not a B2C but a B2B operation, back-end administration.
Example, the hotel venue provider should have the following information to give to the hotel:


Reservation No:    |      Hotel ID |   Date of Trans   | Total Due |
123232                     Lon-5-Ritz      12-12-08           £500

This receipt or bill can be sent to the hotel via email or fax in pdf format or somthing else and it may be billed on a monthly basis, rather than per transaction, so a the Venue provider may bill the hotel for all transaction of a given month, rather than per transaction. (This could work either way, whether the Venue provider accept the payment or the hotel provider accepts the payment and maybe this should be an option)
 
Further, the venue provider would want to keep a record or whether a payment has been settled from a client/hotel, so he may want information like the following as an example:

Reservation No: Hotel ID: Date: Total: Payment method (from guest) | Profit| Settled| Custom fields

As I analyse this software more and more and come to see actual use of it, I see it has so much potential. I really believe if users use IOS R in the multiple evolving-venue model, this is a MUST have feature, otherwise, how do you guys keep a record of such transaction? An external module, program, paper and pen?

Also, it would seem that IOS R is evolving too, I mean just look at the way the system is implemented or restricted in use, especially the new version to come out soon, it is NOT the hotels, that control the system (all the configuration including hotel configurations and now limited use from front end), rather it is the Venue provider, the IOS R system administrator, and therefore IOS R is naturally evolving for the multiple-hotel venue provider, which in travel technical jargon is called Destination Management System. Therefore, an advice, rather than call IOS Reservation, maybe you could give it the another name, because it does not only reserve hotels, but it also advertises destinations and therefore, should rightly be called IOS Destination Management Systems or IOS DMS if you like or something else.  

Anyway, just an idea, like always no harm in suggesting

Thanks again

PS: Datahell, I know I've mentioned this feature to you in private but I do really belive it is something you should at least consider and see that it is not a specific need rather a very much needed feature for the mass, but ask your users.

I'll rephrase this thread when I get sometime as it is not very well written and may not be clear, but in a nut-shell...I'm saying we have three types of users or views:
1. Single hotel use
2. Multiple hotels use
3. Travel Agent's use
Each of them having a slightly different functions....

[datahell]

I managed to read your whole post... 
IOS Reservations built after many people requests as a booking tool. After versions 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0 I released that there are 2 kind of people using the software. a) Those that own a hotel (single hotel), b) Those want to make business with IOS R. (multiple hotel). The most successful usage till now is from the first category as the success of the multiple hotels model is mostly based on the IOS R. administrator (as a business man) and less on the software it self. I also released that most people in the 2nd category try to create a tourist portal, so they need their site to provide more services than a reservation. IOS Reservations v3.0 with the add-on services and with much more informational fields is on that direction.

The venue provider/travel agent model requires a big part of the component (almost a second component) to act as a logistics software. IOS R. will never do that in full scale. It will provide much more information on the reservations, statistics, and options to filter reservations by date and/or by hotel but nothing more. The contact and the payments between the venue provider and the hotel owners is something outside the scope of the component.

[de-active]

That is a very fair point and understood clearly, that IOS R is mostly used by single owner hotels (I didn't know this or think this was the case, my information was purely an assumption based on the examples I was shown) and you are right, this maybe an external logistics module, nonetheless it's an excellent idea and I think more and more people will soon vote for this in the future if they go by my proposed model.

Waiting eagerly for the new version to come out and to see the new features 

[datahell]

A screen shot from the front-end area of the new review/comments system of IOS Reservations 3.0.
Notice that this page is under construction and some features are still missing.