Bookster Product Blog. <br /> <br />Bookster is a product by Tribalogic Ltd. http://www.booksterhq.com Mon, 06 Sep 2010 19:00:57 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.booksterhq.com/images/M_images/rss.png http://www.booksterhq.com Bookster Product Blog. <br /> <br />Bookster is a product by Tribalogic Ltd. http://www.booksterhq.com/content/view/42/16/ Contact forms are rubbish You have tailored your web site to show off your self catering accommodation in it's best light, whetting your visitors appetite and displaying your properties in exactly the way that you want... this is when they are most likely to be excited at booking and you are presenting them with... a contact form?! Contact forms and simple availability calendars are not enough: your potential guests don't care when you are available through the year - they care if they can book. They want to book, let them book; it is a terrible start the relationship with your guest - they have to wait for you to respond, which even if you are super vigilant will be hours if they are in a different time zone to you; when doing a big marketing push, you could be faced with responding to hundreds of availability requests... with two, three or four popular properties - it is just not scalable; eliminate double bookings and don't let guests down. Bookster Blog - Industry Wed, 26 May 2010 21:12:19 +0100 http://www.booksterhq.com/content/view/39/16/ New! Next seven days widget New features are coming thick and fast at the moment! We have added a widget to the "My Bookings" tab in the console that lets you see at a glance who is arriving at your properties over the next seven days. Property managers have always been able to search for bookings easily, but this is great to get a feel for what is happening at their properties over the coming week. Bookster Blog - Bookster Mon, 19 Apr 2010 15:26:15 +0100 http://www.booksterhq.com/content/view/38/16/ When searching in "My Entries" and "My Bookings" users can now filter their results in a more refined manner using the advanced filters. Bookster Blog - Bookster Thu, 15 Apr 2010 13:30:10 +0100 http://www.booksterhq.com/content/view/37/16/ Analyse Booking information from Bookster and Bookster Pro Yo get a better picture of your bookings it is useful to manipulate bookings in a spreadsheet application like Excel or Open Office (http://www.openoffice.org/). Under the "My Bookings" tab in Bookster Self Catering, there is the ability to download booking data as an Excel Spreadsheet. This information is easily imported into many other spreadsheet applications. As I don't have Excel and Open Office is free, I am using Open Office for this example. I have used the "Data Pilot" feature in Open Office to produce some summaries of booking data. Some useful tips: To change any of the summaries, right-click anywhere in the table and click "start", this will bring up the Data Pilot interface Grouping of dates into years, months etc. can be done by moving the spreadsheet active box to the date zone and selecting the menu item "Data -&gt; Group and Outline -&gt; Group" &raquo; more information on support.tribalogic.net (http://support.tribalogic.net/entries/135744-manipulating-bookster-booking-data-in-open-office) Bookster Blog - Bookster Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:02:15 +0100 http://www.booksterhq.com/content/view/36/16/ Sage Pay Integration (http://www.sagepay.com/) We are now offering anyone using Bookster Self Catering or Bookster Pro to use Sage Pay as a payment gateway option. take deposit payments directly into your bank account no waiting for payments from Tribalogic See our forum post (http://support.tribalogic.net/entries/127558-signing-up-to-sage-pay-for-use-on-bookster-self-catering) on how to set up Sage Pay for use with Bookster Self Catering. If in doubt, ask us about (#) Sage Pay integration. Bookster Blog - Bookster Tue, 23 Mar 2010 11:19:55 +0100 http://www.booksterhq.com/content/view/34/16/ A Guide To Writing Online a guide to writing online (Write Right Online) (https://www.e-junkie.com/ecom/gb.php?ii=488169&c=ib&aff=91943&cl=69395), worth taking a look Bookster Blog - Industry Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:02:51 +0100 http://www.booksterhq.com/content/view/33/16/ New Feature: More In Booking Excel Export Get all booking info into your systems As well as allowing more details to be stored with each booking, we have also added more columns to the bookings list Excel export. The following columns are now included as part of the Excel export: Outstanding balance Party size No. of extras Arrival time Departure time Security deposit received Security deposit refunded Bookster Blog - Bookster Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:55:26 +0100 http://www.booksterhq.com/content/view/32/16/ New Feature: More Booking Details Your booking info in one place Bookings in Bookster and Bookster Pro now allow the storage of some additional information. This allows for use of Bookster / Bookster Pro as more of a management tool. Arrival time Departure time Security deposit received Security deposit refunded Look for the management link when viewing a booking in the console. Bookster Blog - Bookster Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:34:13 +0100 http://www.booksterhq.com/content/view/31/16/ Useful Resource: Jayne Brodie from Booked Solid Just read the excellent book by Jayne Brodie called Booked Solid Rentals. A must have for any self respecting vacation rental owner. Jayne is very professional in her approach and offers follow up consulting and webinars if you need more support. Some interesting ideas when it comes to increasing your self-catering bookings up towards the holy grail of 100% occupancy Check out her blog and PDF book at www.bookedsolidrentals.com (http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?af=1058766) Bookster Blog - Industry Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:50:40 +0100 http://www.booksterhq.com/content/view/30/16/ Record Bookings Bookster users can now add bookings from 3rd party sources. This allows the use of Bookster as a management tool to record all bookings. We have provided a form in the secure console that: suggest a price from defined rates; allows the displayed price to be overridden; allows the collection of customer details; displays a selection of extras. Bookster Blog - Bookster Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:54:19 +0100 http://www.booksterhq.com/content/view/28/16/ New Feature: Two Month Calendar Widget We try to listen to our users and a number have now requested a narrower version of our embedded calendar widget. The Bookster widget can now fit neatly into smaller width websites using the "two month wide" widget. The HTML code has been added into the console for Bookster users to easily utilise. Example Bookster Blog - Bookster Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:16:34 +0100 http://www.booksterhq.com/content/view/27/16/ Free Promotion of a Self Catering Website Bookster users are always asking us how to increase traffic to their site, there are many free methods to promote your website that complement the paid for methods (e.g pay-per-click banners or commission based directories) - below I will look at some ways to get your website out there and prospective customers visiting it. I would not recommend using free methods alone, but it is a good way to start. I will address paid for methods in another blog post. For the experienced holiday home owner, the following advice may be obvious, but for those slightly less confident about promoting their site online, read on... So you've got your holiday property website up and running, with Bookster ready and waiting to take those bookings but how do you go about getting people to find your site? Search Engines The most powerful way to get visitors Submit the URL (domain) of your website into the popular search engines to ensure your site is being indexed and will show up when users search for it: Google (http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl) Yahoo! (http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html) Content (Blogs etc.) Content is tied closely to search The only way to be seen above the crowd on... Bookster Blog - Bookster Thu, 14 May 2009 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.booksterhq.com/content/view/26/16/ Times Online: Let the good times roll I spotted an interesting article (http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/investment/article6248378.ece) from the Sunday Times (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/) by Cherry Maslen on letting your holiday home. Despite recent tax changes, buying a holiday rental in Britain can be a smart move, says Cherry Maslen A couple of highlights: The market has dropped substantially in some of the second-home areas that had the biggest bubbles. Prices in Devon are down by 24% from the 2007 peak and those in Cornwall by 21%, according to research by Savills estate agency, based on its own sales figures. Although the prime coastal spots will have held up better, almost nowhere is immune. The Cotswolds, for example, recorded an 18.6% fall; in Suffolk, Norfolk and Dorset, prices were down by 15%. ... he [Ross Elder, Holiday Lettings] reports an increase in bookings for both country cottages and city flats, he says that both are trumped by the seaside, because people tend to stay longer and return the following year if they like it. See the article (http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/investment/article6248378.ece) in full. Bookster Blog - Industry Mon, 11 May 2009 14:26:02 +0100 http://www.booksterhq.com/content/view/23/16/ Building Your Holiday Property Website: A Beginners Guide Bookster is designed to capture your bookings online, but it really needs a slick website to sit on. Why Is It Important? When setting up your holiday home(s), one of the obvious steps is to set up your own web site, but why is it important to get your own website and get it right? Original Source From our experience running our own and client directory sites, we have found that surfers are constantly looking to get to the original source. You have probably done it yourself, browsing Expedia (http://www.expedia.com) or Travelocity (http://www.travelocity.com), you find a hotel that you like the look of and immediately try to find the hotel's own website by typing it into Google (http://www.google.com/). many of your surfers will behave in exactly that way and you can greatly increase your chances of capturing them directly if you have a highly visible website. Bookster Blog - Bookster Mon, 20 Apr 2009 13:52:53 +0100 http://www.booksterhq.com/content/view/21/16/ New Feature: Calendar Widget A free calendar for you self catering website The primary goal of Bookster is to allow realtime booking from your own holiday/vacation property web site, and make this as simple as possible. You can now place your Bookster availability and rates directly on to your web site. The embedded calendar includes: Availability Live pricing updates A direct link to the booking process The calendar can be used as a pricing and availability guide even with free accounts - see example (http://www.oldchurchlane.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=31). Register for a free account (directory/users/register/) now. Bookster Calendar Widget Bookster Blog - Bookster Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:00:00 +0100 http://www.booksterhq.com/content/view/20/16/ New Feature: Multiple Properties Bookster Self Catering now supports multiple properties. Bookster is a great way for self catering property managers to get online booking onto their own web site with the minimum of fuss. We have been working hard to get to a point where we can accept accounts for owners and managers of multiple holiday properties and we are really pleased to announce that multiple property support is now live! We have implemented a quick filter search in the console to allow managers of many properties a quick and easy way to locate the correct property from many. Bookster users can now set up rates, availability and accept bookings for up to 50 properties. Register (directory/users/register/) for a free account and take a look at Bookster Self Catering for yourself. Bookster Blog - Bookster Tue, 14 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.booksterhq.com/content/view/19/16/ The survey was to measure the effectiveness of independent travel web sites (e.g Travelocity or Expedia). More travel reservations online in 2008 "The study finds that 70 percent of travel reservations were booked online in 2008 - up from 53 percent in 2007" Customers would prefer to book direct "When consumers don't believe they're getting the best deal using an independent site, they either go directly to the branded site or they concede to use an independent site, but are less satisfied with their experience" In other words, they are looking for the hotel, B&B, apartment or cottage's own web site. Check out the press release (http://www.jdpower.com/corporate/news/releases/pressrelease.aspx?ID=2008253). Bookster Blog - Industry Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:54:31 +0100 http://www.booksterhq.com/content/view/15/16/ Holiday Property Booking Software - The Pros and Cons Clearly, on this site I am going to "big up" the pros of live online booking, but hopefully I can be impartial enough to give some of the pros and cons of both approaches to generating bookings through your property (or properties) web site. Pros We think live booking is the future so here are some of the general benefits of having live booking on your web site. Open 24/7 worldwide Open yourself up to guests from the other side of the world, booking via your web site while you are tucked up in bed! If, for whatever reason you can't answer the phone or respond to an email in time, you can still accept confirmed bookings Overcome the barrier of foreign language speakers booking your property - even if your booking system is not translated, it is easier for a foreign language speaker to make a booking via the web than over the phone. Give the customer what they are looking for Surfers are most likely looking to find a price, availability and make a booking. Live booking will satisfy their need and improve their overall experience of your web site. Users are highly goal-driven on the Web. They... Bookster Blog - Industry Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:07:37 +0100 http://www.booksterhq.com/content/view/14/16/ In our continuing effort to make the Bookster Beta more useful to property managers, we are happy to announce the new booking extras feature. A new "extras" link will appear when editing a property within the Bookster Administration console. Property managers are able to define extras on a: per night; and per booking basis. Extras are presented to customers to select in the booking process. Bookster Blog - Bookster Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:20:38 +0100 http://www.booksterhq.com/content/view/11/16/ I spotted an interesting article on Cottage Blogger (http://www.cottageblogger.com/) relating to potential customers that waste property owners precious time. Placing online booking on your property web-site is one way to cut down on... ...hours on the phone and in emails with a prospective renter, only to find they never contact you again. Bookster mitigates these problems by: providing real time pricing and availability without the need to ask; enabling the booking of the property instantly with a credit card; giving surfers the ability to make the choice for themselves without any communication with the property owner/manager. See the full article at: http://cottageblogger.com/cottage-rental-basics/how-to-spot-a-cherry-picker-and-other-rental-tips (http://cottageblogger.com/cottage-rental-basics/how-to-spot-a-cherry-picker-and-other-rental-tips) Bookster Blog - Industry Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:03:06 +0100