In this guide:
Selling units individually or as combined units
Maintenances on the units
Frequently Asked Questions
How would the occupancy, guest flow, and revenue KPIs look like when selling Combined Inventory?
As an APP partner, integrated on Apaleo, what does it mean for me to have this functionality of Combined Inventory?
It is very common for accommodation providers to offer adjoining units as combined inventory for guests looking to access more space.
Some common use cases include:
- A hotel can offer two adjacent double rooms as a Suite or Family Room
- A property can even offer a whole floor as a single unit.
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Hostels can group multiple beds and sell them as a whole dormitory.
- Most of the family business properties and leisure hotels consisting of at least 1 family room (or) communicating room, can sell them either as a combined unit or as separate units
In Apaleo you can achieve this by creating a customized grouping of your individual units based on your property’s inventory model and your selling strategy.
At the same, you would have the flexibility of selling them either individually or as combined units based on need and demand.
Combined Inventory setup
1. Start with creating new unit groups by defining the unique combination of unit groups that you want to offer to your guests.
- Choose your property in the context selector, and navigate to Inventory > Unit Groups.
- Create a new unit group (refer Create Unit Groups for more help) by filling in all the necessary details and choosing the option "connecting unit group". And then mention its composition details.
For example, you can create a family suite unit group, by specifying that it’s a combination of 1 Double unit and 1 Single unit.
Note: Once a unit group is created as a connecting unit group, its composition details can't be modified later on.
2. Create new connecting units by specifying which of the combination of the units is forming this new connecting unit.
- Go to Inventory > Units, and click on New units (refer Create units for more help).
For example, the unit FS1 is created as a combined unit of 1.001 (double) and 1.003 (single) units.
Note: Once a unit is created as a connecting unit, its composition details can't be modified later on.
You can see the dependency of the connecting units clearly on the room rack.
3. Repeat steps 1. and 2. for all your combined inventory.
4. Now you can sell your units either individually or offer them as a combined unit.
- Create rate plans (Setup rate plans) for the connecting unit groups and offer them to your guests as you do for any regular inventory type.
Selling units individually or as combined units
- If one of the interconnected units is sold individually to a reservation, the combined unit would become unsellable and it would also be reflected accordingly on your room rack and availability sections.
Availability screen:
On room rack:
- You can receive a regular reservation or a group booking on a connecting unit group and we would deduct the availability on all related unit groups automatically based on the composition of the connecting unit group. Also, whenever a combined unit is assigned to a reservation, it automatically deducts the availability of underlying interconnected units for that timeline.
Maintenances on the units
- Any maintenance on the inter-connected units would impact the combined unit's availability. But doesn't impact the other connected units.
For example, if 1.001 is Out of Order, it would also impact the unit FS1 for that timeline.
- It is also possible to create maintenance on the combined units. However, any maintenance on the combined unit would be independent and do not impact the underlying interconnected units. The units can still be sold individually when you decide not to sell the combined unit anymore for whatever reasons.
Frequently Asked Questions
How would the Occupancy, Guest Flow, and Revenue KPIs look like when selling Combined Inventory?
- Combined inventory count is always excluded from your House count. And thus, by default also does not impact your occupancy KPIs.
- Guest Flow would always represent the information based on the reservations.
For example, when a booking is made for a Family suite that consists of 1 single and 1 double, we increase the sold count of single and double unit groups automatically. And thus, for your overall property, arrivals would be 1, and sold unit count would be 2.
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Whenever a combined unit group is sold, the revenue would always be marked on the connecting unit group though indirectly you sold a set of different unit groups through it. From the above example, if the Family suite is sold for 100 EUR, then on your property overview you will see that 1 guest arriving for the family suite, and you have sold 2 units (1 single and 1 double) and the revenue generated is 100 EUR.
These details can be viewed on your General Manager Report.
As an APP partner, integrated on Apaleo, what does it mean for me to have this functionality of Combined Inventory?
- As a Mobile guest journey app, if I offer a custom functionality of unit auto-assignment to my users when I check in a guest to a combined unit, I need to adjust my logic considering the impact on the combined unit and its underlying connecting units.
- Similarly, when I check in a guest to a regular unit, which is part of a combined unit, I need to understand that it would impact the availability of assigning the combined unit to other reservations.
- As a Revenue Management application / benchmarking application / BI application, I need to understand how to handle the combined inventory when it comes to various metrics like availability, SoldUnitCount, occupancy%, RevPAR, and so on. I understand that revenue generated on the connecting units won’t be carried to the underlying connected units. Though, we mark them as sold but don’t mark any revenue in case the parent is sold.
- As an app that optimizes room assignments, I need to understand how to manage the unit auto-assignment when a property has a combined inventory. And the preferences of keeping combined inventory to be available to the maximum extent when assigning the rooms (connected vs non-connected) for the reservations. For this, I need to adjust my logic considering how an assignment of a connected unit impacts its combined unit’s availability.
- As a Housekeeping app / Task Management app, I should be aware of how to treat a combined unit and how to display them. For example, how do I want to handle guests coming in for combined units —> say, to keep the connecting door open or I need not repeat certain stuff in both rooms, etc.,
- As a Key Management app, I need to know how to generate and revert keys for the combined units. For example, when guests come in for a family suite, I need to issue keys for both connecting rooms. Or key management for beds in case of hostels, etc.,
- As a PBX / IPTV / In-room tablet / Room control app, I need to understand how to assign