Purpose
The block feature has been specifically designed to facilitate the handling of group bookings. It operates as an independent room booking mechanism that doesn't require individual reservations. When rooms are allocated through this feature, they're automatically deducted from the available rooms for sale, and their occupancy can be separately tracked. Each block is invariably linked with a specific company.
Setup
Room Type Blocks
The room reservation process is based on room types. For a single group booking, there could be multiple blocks, each corresponding to different room types and guest combinations.
Pricing
For each room block, you have the choice of selecting a rate for price computation or manually entering a unique price, particularly when there's a specially negotiated rate.
Block Status
You can dictate when a particular block should impact availability. To enable this, we've introduced several block status options.
Release Date and Release Days
You have the option to specify the timeframes during which bookings should be made within the respective blocks.
- Release Date - If the blocks are not utilized by a certain date, the corresponding rooms are automatically made available.
- Release Days - A specified number of days prior to the date the block is referring to, after which a gradual release of unused rooms commences.
Period of the Block
Blocks can easily be applied for:
- the whole period of the event.
- specific dates within the event period.
- several periods within the whole event period.
How Blocks Work
Occupancy Forecast
Each active block influences the availability and decreases the available slots for the corresponding room type. While you can view availability, including blocks that aren't activated yet, such blocks don't affect sales.
Bookings and Blocks
To monitor how blocks are utilized, you should link each incoming booking to the block through which the rooms have been allocated for the group. Each booking depletes one room from the block until it's fully utilized. A booking linked to a block can be initiated directly via your Web Booking System. For this, the customer should be provided with the block code for their group booking. The prices stipulated in the block are automatically applied to the booking.
Block Tracking
You have access to real-time data regarding the number of free rooms in the block. Additionally, you can track how extensively the allocated blocks are being used. This information is available for both future and past dates. You can pull up data for a specific group, company, or a summary for the entire hotel.
Revenue Forecast
Whether there are existing bookings for the block or not, you'll be privy to a revenue forecast, provided a price has been entered in the block.