We have already written about all the benefits an online booking system can provide you:
However, in order to make the most of an online booking system, it is important to know how to use all its features.
For this reason, we wrote this blog in which we will teach you step-by-step how to better manage departures and occupancy within Orioly.
When we say departure management, we specifically mean adding or editing the date, day, and time of a tour departure. In Orioly, you can do this under the Products section.
After completing the basic information about the tour, such as its name and description, the next step is to add details about the departures.
Clicking “Next” takes you to the “Departures” step, then click “Add new”. You can add as many departure definitions as necessary.
In the Type of departure, you can choose between three types:
Non-working days are used to block the availability for a specific period during which the tour will not be available for bookings, for example during your holidays.
It is necessary to define an internal name for your departures, such as, “Morning tour”. This name is not visible to your guests, it is only for your internal use. This way you and your employees can easily manage your departures.
Another step in the departure setup is adding the External name of the tour. If you want, you can use this option to create a different name for each of your departures. This will help your guests to choose the desired one during the booking. For example, a half-day or full-day tour, a morning or evening departure, and one or three hours of vehicle rental.
Note: If a tour has only one departure, the external name will not be displayed.
Within the departure definition, you need to set the period when your product is available for booking as well as which days of the week.
Based on this information your guests will be able to choose the desired departure date when booking on your website.
Note: If you have departures every day of the week, mark all days.
The next item is the Departure Interval. Here you will set the time of the day when you have a departure.
For example, setting the time increment to 60min will display full hours. If you have a departure every half-hour, set the time increment to 30min, and so on.
After choosing the interval in minutes click “Filter” to select the desired departure times.
It is mandatory to set price categories within the departure. In general, tour providers have different prices for adults, children, pensioners, and students. There is no limit to the number of price categories you can add using Orioly.
Does your tour have a limited capacity? No problem. Once you have provided the basic information about the tour and added the most important details such as prices and departures, you can edit its capacity and other options.
What will definitely make your job easier are the following three features that you can find under the Advanced Features item:
The occupancy of each departure can be tracked through the Dashboard. There you have an overview of all your departures and reservations.
You can filter departures by product, occupancy, or period, and choose a monthly, weekly, or daily view to better visualize your departures.
On the weekly view, you can see details regarding departure hours and occupancy, i.e. the current number of reserved seats and the maximum capacity of a departure.
By clicking the departure you have access to further information regarding it, such as its external name, occupancy status, and the number of resources linked to it.
By clicking Occupancy status you will have the option to update the availability its maximum capacity, and close the departure.
Closing the departure is useful to prevent new online reservations for it.
Note: To manage your resources you need to sign up for the Growth or Business package. These packages also come with the OTA Channel manager, which allows you to integrate Orioly with OTA’s so you can manage your bookings on different platforms.
This feature helps you a lot, especially when you are outdoors.
You can access the list of departures in the Dashboard by clicking on the departure whose guest list you are interested in, and then on the “Print” icon.
At the top of the list, you can see the total number of guests by price category as well as the total number of add-ons, such as souvenirs, meals or promotional tickets.
On the departure list, you can manually mark the presence of each guest individually, or use the Orioly mobile app to do it automatically by scanning the QR code from your guests’ voucher. The voucher is sent to them by email when they book online.
With Orioly, your departures and their availability are also visible to your partners and resellers. In order to access this information, first they will need to create a free agent account.
They can do that by accepting the invitation you sent them through Orioly, and afterwards they have access to available dates and slots you enabled them to resell. Read more about partnerships here.
Another great feature is the rebook. This option is located within each reservation and allows you to easily change its date and time initially booked. Read more about this option here.
We hope that this article was useful and now managing your departures and occupancy will be much easier.
For any additional questions, feel free to contact us at support@orioly.com.
If you are interested in other Orioly features, read the following texts:
ORIOLY
on March 13, 2023
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