Delay Times and Double Bookings

Are double bookings possible with two-way GDS? Yes.

In the time it takes for your property management system to communicate with GDS and vice versa there is the chance of double bookings.

It's very important to avoid systems that poll their GDS provider every "x minutes" and go with systems that use a direct communication approach. It's similar to Outlook versus Blackberry e-mail. Outlook "wakes up" every 5 to 30 minutes and checks for e-mail on your e-mail server, whereas Blackberry informs you immediately when an e-mail has arrived.

Let's take the scenario of a guest management system that communicates with GDS every five minutes. If a reservation is booked by you or by GDS, within that five minute window you run the risk of getting a double booking from the other system. If you select a property management system that communicates immediately to GDS, you greatly reduce your chance of a double booking down to the time it takes for the two systems to communicate with each other.

If you presently use GDS, ask your guest management provider which method they use to communicate with GDS. Reservation Nexus uses the direct method which reduces your chance of double bookings.

Smart Minimum Nights^TM

Reservation Nexus, as an industry innovator for bed & breakfasts, inns, hotels and the lodging industry, has just introduced in 2010 a new industry innovation called: Smart Minimum Nights^TM.

Smart Minimum Nights^TM:

• Allows you to up sell "vacancy holes" or "orphan rooms".
• Allows you create minimums that automatically expire "x" number of days before the minimum night start date.
• Allows you to create minimums by room or room class.
• On online bookings, rooms are organized by minimum night requirements.

Our fresh approach to online reservations allows inns to up sell any "vacancy holes" or "orphan rooms" created by making exceptions over the phone to minimum night rules.

In a perfect world, inns and hotels would never break minimum night rules, but in real life minimum night rules are often broken in order to ensure guaranteed revenue. It's a gamble whether at times you either break the rule and get guaranteed revenue or hope that someone comes along and will stay during that minimum night requirement.

In this changing economy how you handle minimum nights can greatly affect your business and the amount of revenue you make each year. Reservation Nexus has now introduced new minimum night innovations for up selling "vacancy holes" in addition to letting you configure minimum nights that automatically expire so many days before the minimum goes from being in the future to becoming the present.

Since Reservation Nexus uses True Seamless GDS ^TM integration, these powerful minimum night enhancements not only occur on the Reservation Nexus online booking engine on your website but throughout the GDS network, helping you capture even more reservations.

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