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Thanks
If you've got any specific questions, you're much more likely to get an answer.
So I wouldn't do any of this --> database structure
Until you've defined what your requirement is. Even if your the customer. Interview yourself... what do you actually want to build and what are the features that your interested in and what are the business rules?
I don’t at this stage have anything specific. I have quite a few clients that are Guest Houses, Car Hire Companies and although there are plenty of options for online booking systems most involve adopting a third party management set up and paying commission on usage.
I was interested to see what literature there was out there on the topic as most Google Searches seem to bring up the third parties selling the solutions rather than any technical discussion on the subject.
In my mind I am thinking about fairly low volume web sites so the database would need to be access or perhaps XML. If I use the example of the Guesthouse each one typically has half a dozen rooms, each of which can only be booked once on any particular date. Each room has certain characteristics i.e. number of beds, maybe an extra fold up bed, cots etc
I'm assuming that you would have a table that holds the bookings with fields something like booking ref, room ref, and date and perhaps make the room ref and date primary key fields so that you don’t get the same room booked out twice on the same day. This table would be linked to other tables to hold the room information, customer information etc.
Normally I can find out a reasonable amount of discussion on the web so why re-invent the wheel.
As soon as you have it mapped out on paper, you can start designing the tables and then the web code.
I've thought about a booking system as well, but haven't had the time to start on one.
But as for discussing your specs, I doubt that will happen here. We're all pretty much mercenaries and when it comes to this kind of work we're all scratching for a living.
- Acme Car Rental Program
- Drs Office Scheduling System
If you want I'll dig up the data models for those?
There are loads of booking systems around for all types of situations, but I haven’t yet found any sort of useful information on the concepts for designing them. Interestingly most of the options appear as part of a larger organisation i.e. you have to subscribe to their service to use their booking system. This normally involves passing the traffic out of your own site and onto theirs which of course with their own branding. There doesn’t appear to be an option to wire into their systems remotely from a web page within your own site with your own branding. Perhaps these services should run as web services rather than links their internal pages.
I would have thought there would be scope for a small, bolt on component or class that could be integrated with the average small bed and breakfast web site to provide the functionality without the ongoing commission.
If you contrast this with shopping carts there are loads of components available but also stacks of information on concept, design principal etc, not to mention quite a few free downloads and starter kits. I don’t know whether this is related to complexity or whether there is some concealed hidden secret that I am simply not aware of?
Martyn Fewtrell
*Are you offering global rate levels or are you going to offer different rates to different regions.
*Rate periods
*Is the booking system purely for direct customers, or are you going to allow wholesalers to book via the system as well?
*How will payments work? (ie full amount upfront, or deposit and full payment on arrival, or full payment 30 days out etc etc)
*Will you allow customers to login and cancel or amend bookings once in the system.
*Inventory/Product control - How will this be managed in terms of availability of rooms, high and low seasons, and so on and so forth.
Hope some of this helps.
With respect to direct customers/wholesalers this is the crux of the problem with many of the available commercial systems. To my mind any system should really have an available "web service" so that alternative authorised systems can update each other. Therefore if you advertise your accommodation on two or more online booking systems each updates each other and you don’t end up booking the same resource twice. This certainly is not the case at the moment and most of my clients that subscribe to such systems play safe by allocating only a percentage of their rooms to each provider. I suppose the problem is trying to get the various providers to agree a standard.
I don’t see an issue with payments as this would depend upon the accommodation provider’s personal policy. Most of those that I deal with take a deposit with balance on arrival.
What I hadn’t considered was the online cancellations. I suppose it would be reasonably easy for individuals to create accounts with which they can change their bookings. Most of my clients charge a cancellation fee up to a certain time before the booking i.e. full payments if cancelled on day of stay, 50% if cancelled within 48 hrs and so on. One of the dangers here might be if competitors realised this was an option and pre-booked the rooms and then cancelled 48 hrs in advance to avoid the payment.
Product or stock control is the real issue amongst all of these. Most rooms can accommodate a variable amount of users and cost varies according to the number of users. The problem here is that if you have a room that sleeps 4 you really don’t want to let it to a party of 2 until you don’t think that you are going to get a booking for 4, otherwise you could loose money. Most hoteliers do this by judgment based on how busy it is and this would be difficult to simulate. The other thing is that many rooms may have additional facilities e.g. cots and fold up beds. There are a finite number of these facilities so if you had every room booking a cot you could come unstuck (although this is unlikely).
Martyn Fewtrell
I don’t see an issue with payments as this would depend upon the accommodation provider’s personal policy
In practice, for the travel industry its not that simple. If you purchase by CC and dont recieve the goods, you are entitled to a refund. In the UK there are limits on the time delay between taking payment and reciept of goods. Thats why many hotels wait & process payment when physically checking in/out.
I assume that as they are only small businesses with a limited turn over and they are businesses that are based on having good relations with their guests nobody ever questions it or customers just accept it as being correct or acceptable at the time of booking. Bear in mind I’m not talking about large Hotels sitting on vast amounts of capital to gain interest but B & B’s taking £25 or £50 a night.
I suppose also that with many of them the time period between the time of booking and the time that the service is delivered may well be quite short.
My reference to it not being an issue was from a programmers perspective rather than from the businesses legal standpoint.
