Online Booking Service - More Information

I'm interested in the online booking service. Can you tell me more?

The online booking service is an extention to your ability to take offline bookings. Offline bookings can come from a number of sources including email, telephone and fax. Online booking will allow your customers to check current room availability and book from any computer that has access to the Internet. The online booking service is hosted on our website: http://www.thebookingpro.com.

If I use your online booking service, how do I set it up and how do I download online bookings into the hotel booking system?

Once you have signed-up for the online booking service, you will receive details for your account on: thebookingpro.com
You will be provided with a booking page link, (This is the link needed from your website to the booking page) and other information on how to get the online bookings into your hotel booking system.

The download interaction between the online system and the offline hotel booking system is something we call Internet synchronisation.
Internet synchronisation works both ways. Bookings made offline will be synchronised with the online system and Internet bookings will download into the hotel booking system. This ensures that both booking sources are updated to prevent the possibility of double booking.

What payment gateway does your online bookings site use and what are the fees?

Our online booking service uses PayPal as the payment gateway. This means that in order for your customers to pay you, you will need to have a business PayPal account with their product, Website Payments Pro.
The Website Payments Pro product allows your customers to pay online using their credit card or by using PayPal. Equally important, PayPal also provides a virtual terminal and this will let you take payment for offline bookings. Click the link above for more information.

What options does the online booking service have?

The online system will let you set options such as:

• Add your own HTML code to customise the look and style of the booking page header.
• Setting a minimum number of bookable nights.
• Whether a deposit payment or full payment is required to secure a booking.
• Setting a particular day that a booking should start from, for example Saturday.

The online system will allow customers to specify what room type they would like to stay in. As the customer selects their required option, the booking summary will update showing the total amount payable. The room types should be as meaningful as possible to allow the customer to select their option.

When a room type has been selected and the customer proceeds to the payment section, the system will allocate the first room available based on the booking dates and the order of the room types in the system.