Front desk optimization – it is the process of distributing reservations between room types, for the smooth placement of the maximum number of reservations.
| Important! It is necessary to regularly monitor the front desk optimization process in order to avoid the situation of getting the reservation into the overbooking queue category. |
When using the system to synchronize OTAs, the uploading of free rooms is carried out “pointwise”: every day – a certain number of rooms, excluding accommodation in a particular room.
This feature allows you to accept relocation reservations from one room to another, or to optimize the placement of reservations between rooms within the same room type.
The reservation coming from the OTAs comes to the first free room, so the reservations can be placed in the system Front desk rather chaotically.
If there is at least one free room, the system will accept the reservation. However, since it is impossible to place a reservation in a certain room type without editing, the reservation will be accepted into the overbooking queue category. If there are no free rooms in the overbooking queue category, the system will create a new number by marking and adding the prefix “tmp” to its name.
Uploading to OTAs will be carried out taking into account this reservation.
If such a reservation came from the OTA, you have to:
- optimize the Front desk (make the fields of its space homogeneous);
- transfer the reservation to the vacated space.
The optimization process resembles the popular Tetris game – reservations must be placed within the maximum number of rooms so that there are no free dates between them.
| Important! If a certain number of rooms have been created within a room type, this means that they are all identical and the ability to move reservations is always relevant. If the room differs in living conditions (the presence of a balcony, an increased area, a view from the window, etc.), then a separate room type must be created for it. |
Optimization principles
Optimization is carried out exclusively within the same room type with the accommodation facility rooms. The use of other room types with accommodation facility rooms can lead to distortion of information, incorrect uploading to OTAs, and create a risk of overbooking.
In addition, the technical room type Overbooking can participate in optimization (since this room type does not participate in sales and is necessary for the system to work correctly).
Optimization rules
- Optimization of reservations occurs within one room type (does not apply to reservations from direct sales);
- The Overbooking queue technical category may be involved in optimization;
- You cannot move reservations in which there are marks of check-in or check-out of a guest (such reservations are assigned to a specific room).
- You cannot move reservations between room types if they come from OTAs;
- After optimization, it is necessary to upload data to online booking channels and check the extranet for the accuracy of information display.
It is not the responsibility of the system’s technical support managers to track Front desk optimization in the OtelMS accounts of accommodation facilities.