I am glad to announce that we have entered into an agreement with WebHotelier, the leading Booking Engine vendor, to interconnect our systems and co-operate commercially. We have already made the necessary background work for the interconnection and we have published new prices to include their offering. Below is a detailed description of the why’s and how’s. Why WebHotelier? You might be wondering why we entered into an agreement with a Booking Engine vendor while we have our own booking engine (Webbookings). The answer is simple: one cannot excel in everything. Our decision is to focus and enhance our […]
read moreIn the past three years that our service is up and running, we have been repeatedly asked to include functionality for guest billing. I am happy to announce that as of today, this is part of our service. Adding Βilling wasn’t easy and it is not the technical part that I am referring to. Billing/Invoicing is subject to different rules depending on the country a lodge is operating. Some of the rules are just common practice, while others are dictated by the country’s laws. For this reason, we do not consider the new functionality as complete. It is beta. And […]
read moreThe observant users must have noticed a new icon on the top left of the calendar, in the web app. It has been placed there in anticipation of a new piece of functionality that we make available today: housekeeping. Housekeeping functionality is a common part of the PMS’s for bigger hotels. In small lodges, housekeeping is not that hard to manage manually. Except from one thing: keeping track of when to perform the tasks. Why is this so? Because, in many places, it is a common practice to clean a room, or change linen, not on a daily basis, but […]
read moreToday we published a number of much requested features: Opening and closing rooms at will Setting the minimum stay per room and per day Rate plan rules for discounts based on number of days booked Along with the above came a few look and feel tweaks for the calendar. The availability and minimum stay functionality affects all clients utilising our booking engine and web sites. The discount rule is available to all paid subscriptions but it is more useful with the booking engine. Opening and closing rooms at will So far, in order to block a room from appearing as […]
read moreIn the beginning of next month we will be increasing the Basic plan price from 7 to 9 Euros per month, and from 70 to 90 Euros per year. The new pricing was the desired pricing for this level of service in the first place, but we have kept it lower for one year for two reasons: We wanted to complete the Extras functionality. We did this happily last week. To give our customers a smooth introduction to the paying plans. We introduced the various paying plans last September, so after a year, we are confident that it was a right […]
read moreIn the last couple of days we have been gradually rolling out for our web apps a series of new features that relate to the Extras functionality. Extras are present in our mobile apps a long time now. These additions were long overdue and we are very happy to roll them out at last. In sort, the additions are: Extras in the reservation form of the web app. Extras in the booking engine. Extras in the website builder. Extras in the reservation form If you do not remember what extras are about, please read the post about their initial introduction. The extras […]
read moreLast week we published a much requested feature for Web Bookings, our booking engine: search by number of guests. This is something pretty common but which we had not included in the first place, thinking that for small lodges, it is not bad for people to see all the alternative rooms offered when they make a search for availability. With the advent of the rate plans though, and the “Per person” pricing rule, searching by number of guests could have an impact on the price of a specific room. So, now, when people search without specifying the number of guests, […]
read moreIn the past two weeks we have rolled out two new short email notifications for the booking engine (Web Bookings). “Reservation in progress”: The first is sent by email to the owners when a client is starting the process to book a room, just before payment. At this point, a tentative reservation is already created under his name and it is visible in the calendar. The email body will look like this: First Name: <first name> Last Name: <last name> Email: Phone: <phone> Date from: dd/mm/yyyy Date to: dd/mm/yyyy Agreed price: 999 State: 1 (Tentative reservation) “Reservation in progress was […]
read moreAdding reservation extras was something very close to the top of the list of requested features. Today, I am happy to announce that this is now a reality. We have added the Extras functionality to our apps and we are gradually rolling it out starting with the Android app. Version 1.4.002, which is already available on the Play store, has this piece of extra (pun intended) functionality. The iOS app will also be available in few days (we are awaiting Apple’s approval). For the web app, it will take a bit longer: we are overhauling the calendar and reservation parts […]
read moreBack in March 2014 we started offering Discoveroom Reservations for free. Although it was innovative and the first truly mobile Reservations Management System for the accommodation industry, we knew that it was limited. It lacked some essential functionality that the bigger systems had. But this was by design. We planned to offer this kind of extra functionality under a paid scheme and make a living off it. In the months passed we found out that people loved the free app and they were more than happy to stay with it. So new users kept coming by the hundreds and then by […]
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