overview | features | menus | reports | access levels | invoices | supplier seasons | flt desk | ops desk | prices

The Operations Desk

The Operations Desk allows users to create, delete, and adjust contracted and ad hoc accommodation details as follows:

Build geographical groups, airports, resorts, building types, and individual buildings to hold passengers
Set nett prices using local currencies and seasonal bands as set by suppliers
Set selling prices as add-on prices, inclusive, or per night prices
Set selling prices to be created from a combination of nett prices, markups, and exchange rates
Set selling prices to be proportionate when the holiday covers more than one selling date band
Create rooms, block them off, institute stop-sale dates, release periods
Enter descriptions on buildings and resorts which can be used by reservations staff to sell holidays
Enter ad hoc buildings so that reservations staff have help lists of available accommodation
Automatically create on-screen charts which can be zoomed into, or panned across date ranges, displaying bookings which can then be selected and viewed

How to Price accomodation
               Creating a selling price which is inclusive per person
               Enabling Tripper to create selling prices out of net prices
               Enabling pro-rata selling of a given building
               Enabling wholesaling based on the nett rates
               What can stop a building from appearing in the availability list inside res or Enquiries?
How to create selling seasons
How to create Net/selling seasons
Frequently asked questions

How to price accommodation:

There are several steps for pricing accommodation, and which ones to follow will depend on how you want to price your accommodation and packages.  Here are the different ways you can price your accommodation and packages:

1. Creating a selling price which is the inclusive price per person, for example, £199 per person including flight for 7 nights

To do this:

a.   create selling seasons using Seasons: Selling date bands
with this menu option, you then choose Enter 1-10 Per-pax costs Yes/No.  If you choose No, you can then enter, per building and per selling date band, the 7 night inclusive price, the 14 night inclusive price, the 7 day additional (accomm only) price, and the 1 day additional (accomm only) price.  These prices can be used to provide any price for any duration or combination whether inclusive, additional, extended, and so on. 

If you choose Yes, you then have a more precise way of dealing with the prices.  Firstly, you can decide at the start whether or not the prices you are about to enter include or exclude the flight price.  Remember, you may be selling the accommodation as an add-on to an allocated flight, an ad-hoc flight, an airscan flight, or an existing package that has accommodation on it already. 

You can then enter the per-person selling prices for passenger counts which are permissible for the building type of that building.  For example, if the building type holds 2,3 or 4 passengers, the screen will show all combinations of 2, 3 and 4 passengers for 1,2,3,4,5,6 nights and 1 and 2 weeks, and extra night and extra week prices. 

This method requires more input, but can match more closely a published brochure of prices. 

Notice that the selling date bands on the left of the screen cannot be changed: these are the selling date bands that have been entered using Seasons: Selling date bands above.
b.   enter the prices by selecting a resort, then choosing Prices/Data.
c.   enter nett (buying) rates

Either create the date ranges building by building using Prices/Data: Buy and then enter the nett prices, or create the seasons across an entire geographical group, or one resort in the selected geographical group only, or to one building only; in the latter case, you must still enter the nett prices per building as just described.

Remember: if the building has been tagged as "prices per room" then the nett prices searched for will be the per room prices and applied to the room as a whole, then divided between the passengers.  If the building's prices have been tagged as NOT per room, then it is assumed they will be per person, in which case the per pax nett cost will be applied and costed per passenger.

back to top

2. Enabling Tripper to create Selling prices out of Nett prices

For this option, less inputting is required.  Tripper creates a package price depending on variables which exist in the system at the time.  these are:

a.   the sterling nett cost of the flight involved, if any
b.   the nett cost of the accommodation, whether per person or per room
c.   the currency exchange rate for whatever currency the nett prices have been entered in
d.   the admin costs for the relevant supplier, whether as a percent of nett or a per-person price
e.   the margin amount entered for the selling season which applies to the holiday in question
f.    the margin type: whether percentage or fixed
g.   any margin variations which have been added per building, resort, or airport
h.   the rounding feature: whether prices should be rounded up to the nearest 9

Once these are set up, modifying the currency rate ensures that all packages are priced properly at point of sale.  Remember, the accommodation may be sold in conjunction with an Airscan flight, an allocated flight, an adhoc flight, or on its own.

back to top

3. Enabling pro-rata selling of a given building

This is done by highlighting the building and pressing Ctrl-P (for proportional or pro-rata pricing).  This key combination will turn the proportional pricing on and off for that building.  When set to on, the letter p will appear to the right of the airport code to the left of the building in the buildings box on the Operations Desk.

Proportional pricing means that should a holiday cross two seasonal date bands, the price will be broken into a nightly price for each band, under the relevant conditions for each band, and then added together.  So if the first date band covered 4 nights of the holiday, and the second one 3, a 7 night price would be worked out by finding the first price and dividing by 7, then multiplying by 4, then taking the second price and dividing by 7 and multiplying by 3, to create a new selling price.  Nett rates are calculated on a daily basis anyway, in order to get a correct figure into the ledgers.

back to top

4. Enabling wholesaling based on the nett rates

This enables a wholesaling operation to be run concurrently with the other selling options used at the time.  Using the Prices/Data: Buy command, enter the selling rates per room wholesale and retail, and the same per pax. 

Remember: depending how the building is set (either per room or, if not, per pax pricing), the relevant information will be used.  If the building is set as per room, and the per room costs are empty, no nett price will appear.

The idea is that staff in certain retail companies can sell this way alongside other users who sell in the ordinary way.  To do this, move a user to a retailer code intended to sell in this way, and using Utils: Setup: Retailer: TAB: change bb_style to RT for retail, or WH for wholesale.

This has the added advantage of creating bookings under a different retailer code, enabling more accurate breakdowns of prices and sales to be made later on.

back to top

5. What can stop a building from appearing in the availability list inside res or Enquiries?

When a building fails to appear in Res, there are several possible reasons for this:

a.    The whole building is on stop sale
b.    The holiday starts before the valid_from date on the building
c.    The holiday ends after the valid_to date on the building
d.    The holiday crosses a stop sale period
e.    The building has a turnaround day which does not match the first day of the holiday
f.     The building is being sold via specified retailer code that does not match the res staff's
g.    The building has been tagged as only weekly: the stay is not exactly 7,14, 21 or 28 nights.
h.    The building is not in the resort that was chosen

Remember: When a building has no availability, but is still eligible to be quoted, it still appears on the res screens.  This is so staff can see the rate at which buildings have sold out compared to those which are still available, and enable them to deal with clients who ask for a specific building which may now not be available.   In the latter case, if the building did not appear, staff would be uncertain as to whether they should alter some parameters of the holiday, such as the start date or duration, in order to make the building appear.

Turnaround days must be understood before buildings can be sold effectively.  The turnaround field on a building can be empty, or be "1", "12", "356" and so on, representing either the fact that all weekdays are available for entry into the building (that is, monday to sunday), or only monday (1), tuesday (2) and so on.

Turnaround days can be affected by the resort in which the building is located.   If the flight arrives friday night/saturday morning at 06:00, the choice is whether or not to give the person the room from midday on the friday, so he can go straight to the accommodation, or, from midday on the saturday, so he has to wait before entering the room.

If, on the resort record, the deadline is set to 05:00, then anyone arriving at the airport at or before 5:00 will get the building from the previous midday; anyone arriving afterwards will have to wait until midday of that day.  The reason for the choice is the transport time to the resort from the airport.  If the client is travelling to, say, Poros from Athens, and cannot possibly get to the resort within 4 hours anyway, it seems pointless to lose almost a whole day's accommodation for the sake of one hour benefit to the client.

On the departure from the foreign airport, a similar rule applies: if the flight leaves friday at 18:00 hours and the resort is 5 hours away from the flight, the client will not need the room all the way until saturday morning.  The deadline2 here will be probably 20:00 or later, since only if the flight would not require the person to leave the building until late afternoon would there be any reason to give him a stay extended beyond midday.  For deadline2, therefore, the logic works in reverse: anyone leaving on a flight departing on or after the time set will keep the room up until the midday of the next day.

If the deadline in either case is set to zero, then it is ignored: whatever day the flight departs on for the foreign airport is the first day on which accommodation is booked, and the day of departure is the last day of the accommodation holiday.

back to top

 How to create Selling seasons

A Selling season covers 1 November - 30 April in the case of Winter, and 1 May - 31 October in the case of Summer.  The season can be arbitrarily divided into date bands.  A date band is a pair of dates between which all conditions are the same: that is, the same selling prices apply, the same markup conditions, etc.

To create a season, or modify the existing date bands within it, choose Seasons: Selling date bands.  A list of possible season names is then offered: Summer_02 for example, covers 1 May 2002 to 31 October 2002.  Next to the name of the season are two numbers: the first is the number of selling date bands within it, and the second is the number of nett/selling bands.  An arrowhead appears over the leftmost column because at this moment you are dealing with Selling bands.  A zero indicates no bands have been setup.

When a season name is chosen, the first and last dates are offered.  You can then split the season into a number of bands of so many days each, or, a fixed number of bands which Tripper will then divide as equally as possible over the length of the season.   The default markup is the markup amount which should be used by default for each band, though of course each band can then be adjusted as need be.  You can have as many or as few bands as you require.

When the bands are either created, in the case of a new season, or, listed, in the case of one already setup, each is shown with the band number, the range of dates, including the day of the week on which the band starts and ends, and the markup amount.   Remember that the markup condition of percent or fixed is set by the geographical group: so if EUROPE is set to be a fixed amount, all the figures shown in the margin column will be fixed amounts to be added to the per passenger cost of the booking.

You can press DEL or INS or ENTER to adjust the information given.  If there are any breaks in the bands, for example, if there are empty days between two adjoining bands, an angle bracket   ]  will appear to the right of the two bands which do not quite meet.  Pressing INS will then add a correctly set band.

So, in a season with 10 bands, to lose bands 4,5 and 6, delete them, and then highlight band 3 and press INS.  if the gal is at the start, that is, the first band does not start at the beginning of the season, on 1 May 2002, for example, then press Backspace to add the first band.

Press HOME to send the bands to the master file: meaning that they are now stored against the season name and can be chosen again at any time for adjustments, etc.

Having brought the bands up on screen, you can choose to send them to all buildings in any one EUROPE resort, or, to all buildings in EUROPE, that is, all buildings in all resorts in all airports in the group EUROPE.

You may later want to change one building, and so can bring up the seasons, make changes, and send them to one building or one resort, but not save them to the master file, so that the variations only apply to the buildings in question.

Back to top

How to create Nett/Selling seasons

Follow the instructions above but choose Nett/Selling bands rather than Selling bands.

All other options are the same, with the exception of the Margins options, which only apply to selling prices.  When the date bands are shown on screen, you can choose the following save commands:

Home: save bands to the master seasons file to match with the chosen season for all future operations.
Alt-R: Send bands to all buildings in any one EUROPE report (as in the above example).
Alt-A: Send bands to all buildings in all EUROPE resorts.
Alt-B: Send bands to one building.

Note: When bands are sent to any one property, existing prices are retained as far as is possible, even if the new bands do not match the old ones.   Wherever prices have been created already, these are retained and spread across the new bands even when new bands over-write the old ones.

Back to top

Frequently Asked Questions:

Can I force only 7, 14 and 21 night durations?

Yes: press enter on the building required, and change Only weekly stays? to Yes.   In that case, only stays of exactly 7, 14, 21 and 28 nights will be allowed.

How do I link different airports to bedbank information for another airport?

Suppose the airport to which bedbank information has been attached is called MCO, and you wish to direct enquiries for SFB to that same accommodation.  What you would do is use the Ops Desk: Airports: select SFB, and press Enter.

Change the Bedbank Link Code to be MCO.  From then on, enquiries for SFB accommodation will be directed towards MCO accommodation.

What are the indicator tags for next to the airports, resorts and buildings?

What hot keys are available for changing information?

How do I enter extra prices to be added to the holiday, and how do I navigate large lists of them?

Extra prices can be based on a large number of parameters.  The + sign triggers these extras on airports, resorts or buildings, and all are combined when a  booking is made, to give a scrollable list of extras on a booking.  They will be displayed during the explain pricing option when quoting on accommodation. 

When a booking is made, Alt + E brings up all extras on the accommodation booked so far.  For an existing booking, the same hot key applies.  The F10 key either selects or ignores all, and the TAB key selects or deselects any given extra.   Selected items are checked to the right, or marked with an apostrophe in the case of some Windows emulations.

What are extra suppliers per building for?  How can I use the bedbank to ensure adhoc building information is entered correctly?

When buildings are being sold adhoc, You can tell Tripper to only allow adhoc buildings that have been entered in the bedbank, and this is a setting per retailer.  Use Utilities: Setup: Retailers: TAB: Ac_verify.  Other toggles in the retailer file include Accfilter, which allows you to enter a resort name and building name, or the first letters of each, to limit the amount of data shown on screen, and Accpreview, which allows buildings matching Airscan flights to be shown at the top of the screen during an Airscan search, assisting the sale of in-house accommodation when buying outside flights.

How do I report on sales made?

See the reports section of this web site for sample listings.

How do I use the bedbank charts, and what do they signify?

The chart represents an image of the bookings and availability for a given building over any date range within the bedbank's capability.  The Chart: Magnify option can be used to increase or decrease the date range of the chart on screen.  The effect is the same as walking towards or away from a bedbank chart on a wall: as you zoom in, fewer dates are displayed but more bookings are shown; as you go back, more dates are displayed but less detail on each booking.

When a booking's details can be seen, the user can scroll from one to the other using the Bkg command and actually enter and examine any given booking on screen.

I get an error when searching for availability, saying that a certain month/year combination does not exist.  How do I fix that?

This means your bedbank needs to be extended to cope with that particular date.   Use Operations; Supervisor: BB and enter the start and end dates for the bedbank.   The date range can be as long as you like but will ideally be a period of two to three years.  Too large and the file will slow down when res searches are made: too small and you will need to rebuild it too often. Ideally the bedbank should be rebuilt once a year.

Old bookings are never lost from the system: only the bedbank image is changed to show more or less of the bookings on the screen at any one time.  The bedbank is best used for managing availability; there is not much point in retaining this information from previous years, though of course this can be done if required.

How do I cut down the amount of available building information shown to res?  Can I do this per retailer? 

You can tell Tripper to only allow matching retailer codes to sell the product in question.  Do this using Operations: Supervisor: AcRet: On/Off.  Once this is on, you can take advantage of it by highlighting any particular building and pressing the End key.  A list of retailers pops up, to which you can add or delete retailers.  If no retailers have been set, you must choose a retailer from the list of retailers first.   Retailers are displayed in green.

You can also use Utils: Setup: Retailers: TAB: to change the Accfilter tag to Yes.   This allows smaller amounts of information to be brought up, based on the first letters of a resort or building during res searches.

What is the number and check mark to the left of the building for, when buildings are displayed as available in res?

The check mark (or an apostrophe in some Windows conditions) indicates that the building suits the exact occupancy entered in the search.  A search on behalf of a group of 10 people could cause a number of studios to come up as available, and these would not be checked, as they do not sleep 10 people in each one.  But, a number of them could still be booked to handle the group.

The number is the number of nights for the holiday, on which the pricing is based; the duration may have been altered because of deadline times or other factors such as night flights.

How do I enter the supplier handling fees?

In the accounts package, choose Database: Supplier: Edit.  The first available field is P/Pax, which should be the currency amount in foreign currency, per head, and is the default field used when Tripper calculates the supplier's handling fee.  The alternative one is % of nett which represents the additional handling fee levied by the supplier as a % of the existing nett rate for that holiday.

How do I enter key collections and special requests?   Why don't these get sent to the booking once they are changed in the Operations Desk?

Ctrl-K over a building will allow you to enter three lines of 75 characters each.   This is copied to the bookings made on that building.  However, that information when copied to the booking becomes unique to that booking; it can be added to in special circumstances where unusual key arrangements or special requests are required for that booking.  It would therefore not be desirable to overwrite these custom made arrangements with new information from the building itself.

Back to top