Bookings made by guests with the ON DEMAND system need to be managed by the hotel staff. The guest requests the booking with his phone, for a specific day, time and number of persons. The booking is created with “PENDING” status. After that, a member for the hotel Staff will need to either accept or reject the booking. If the booking is accepted the booking will appear with “CONFIRMED” status to the guest. If the booking is rejected the booking will appear with “CANCELLED” status to the guest.
Bookings made by guests with the ON DEMAND system cannot be cancelled by guests from their phones, even if they have not been confirmed yet by the hotel staff.
Route: CONTENT -> FACILITIES -> RESTAURANTS
- Hover the cursor of the mouse over the Restaurant which we want to configure with the ON DEMAND system.
- Click on the “Timetable and Reservations” tab.
- Select “ON DEMAND” in the Booking System section.
- Turn on the “Bookable” switch for the intervals you want.
- Interval: In this box you need to introduce (in minutes) how long are the turns for each booking. For example, if the Intervals starting and closing times are 10.00 and 11.30, and the interval is 30 minutes, guests will be able to book at 10.00, at 10.30, at 11.00 and at 11.30 (every 30 minutes, which is what you introduced in the Interval field).
- Price: If the restaurant has a fixed price (because it’s not a la Carte, for example), you can indicate the price in this box by typing it. It will be shown to guests when they try to make a booking.
- Activate Offers: You can also activate an offer if you wish to. You will need to add a text for the offer in all available languages (remember to click in the flag icon to open the available languages pop up) and an offer price. The guest will see the offer text, the original price and the offer price.
- Introduce the emails of the persons who you want to receive an email message every time someone books at the restaurant. These persons will be able to accept or reject ON DEMAND bookings, by email or in the CMS. To do this, click on “Add new email” and just type each email and press ENTER. If the email is correctly added, it will appear inside a green box.
- Click on “Save Changes”
You might want to configure additional parameters of the booking system such as maximum advance time or minimum advance time, or the message the guest receives on his phone when a booking is accepted or rejected.
To configure these you will need to turn on the “Show Advanced Options” switch. This will display the following configuration options:
- Booking in advance up to: Here you can type the maximum number of DAYS with which guests can book in advance at the restaurant. For example, if you introduce “2” here, guests will be able to book today, tomorrow, and the day after, but they will not be able to book at the restaurant after that (because it’s more than 2 days in advance).
- Minimum advance time: Here you can type the minimum advance time (IN MINUTES) guests will need to be able to make a booking at the restaurant. That minimum advance time can be counted from the time of their booking or from the time the restaurant opens. For example, if you type 120 minutes before booking time, and right now it’s 17.00, the earliest time a guest will be able to book for will be 19.00 because he has to book at least 120 minutes before his booking time.
- Reservation Units: Here you can change what the guest books at the restaurant. Normally he will be booking for a certain number of persons and in this case you don’t need to change this. But maybe instead of booking for persons you want him to book whole tables. In this case you would select “Custom” in Reservation Units and then type “Tables” in the text field which will appear. Remember to click on the flag icon next to the text field to open up the languages pop up and make this change in all available languages.
- Automatic response for pending bookings: Here you can change the message the guest receives when he just requested the booking and it is created with “PENDING” status. Just click on the text field and enter the new message. Remember to click on the flag icon next to the text field to open up the languages pop up and change this message for all available languages.
- Automatic response for confirmed bookings: Here you can change the message the guest receives when his booking is confirmed. Just click on the text field and enter the new message. Remember to click on the flag icon next to the text field to open up the languages pop up and change this message for all available languages.
- Booking Call to Action Text: Here you can change the message shown in the “Book” button in the guest’s phone. Just click on the text field and type the new text. It should be a really short text, ideally a single word. Remember to click on the flag icon next to the text field to open up the languages pop up and change this text for all available languages.
- Comments text field: Here you can change the text shown to guests above the comments field when they’re making a booking on their phones. It is useful if you want guests to provide a specific information in the comments field (for example, “Please indicate if you would prefer a table outside or inside”). To change this text just click on the text field and type the new text. It should be a really short text, ideally a single word. Remember to click on the flag icon next to the text field to open up the languages pop up and change this text for all available languages.
- Enable booking cancellation policy: If you want to display the restaurant’s booking cancellation policy to guests you should turn this switch on. A text box will appear where you can include the restaurant’s cancellation policy. Remember to click on the flag icon next to the text field to open up the languages pop up and include the cancellation policy for all available languages.
- Enable booking cancellation checkbox: This switch will only appear if you activated the previous switch (Enable booking cancellation policy). Turn it on if you want a checkbox to appear to guests. In order to be able to book at the restaurant guests will need to check this box acknowledging that they have read and understood the bookings cancellation policy.
When you’re done click on “Save Changes” .