This article covers everything you need to know about mapping the Hotel Reservation Service (HRS) to your channel manager, including helpful tips and tricks to complete the process smoothly.

HRS mapping is unique, not only because of the complex way it configures rooms and rates, but also because it uses static room types and rate categories. HRS room types also differ from the channel manager’s — availability is handled separately, for instance — so before you start mapping, get to know its room types, occupancies and rate categories to aid connection and prevent overbookings.

💡 Your mapping configuration settings must match what you have set on your HRS extranet— including any applicable rebates and surcharges — as the channel manager will overwrite information on HRS once the connection is enabled, and if not done properly, you could lose some settings.

Let’s take a look at how HRS divides the types of rooms sold to guests.

By default, HRS has two room types for each property: SGL (single room) and DBL (double room).

💡 Note:

When searching HRS to find rooms, your guests can filter by the number of travellers that can be allocated to a specific number of single or double rooms.

➕ For example, 3 travellers can be allocated to rooms in any of the following ways:

With the examples above, DBL rooms can be booked by either one person wanting a more spacious room, 2 adults, or 3 adults who prefer to share a room.

When booking, guests will initially see the room price excluding breakfast. The breakfast price (per person per night) is used to adjust the price according to the number of guests booking the room, so if you are mapping a channel manager room type to both the SGL and DBL, the price for the two rates should be the same. (The separate occupancy price is also handled by the breakfast price.)

💡 Note:

In HRS, every rate manages its own inventory and availability, whereas the channel manager separates an inventory or room type from its pricing or rates.

When connecting two rates mapped to the same room type, HRS duplicates the room type’s availability for each rate. For example, look at the diagram above — see how HRS treats two mapped room rates as if they have their own inventory? Although the actual availability of double rooms is 2, the duplication in HRS creates a total of 4 — this poses a risk of overbooking.

We therefore recommend mapping only one rate for every room type to HRS.

💡 Overbookings like these will only occur if too many rooms are booked at once or more than one reservation is booked for the same room at the same time on a channel. If rooms are booked individually, the availability will decrease after each booking, and so too will the risk of overbookings.

When mapping, you can see the inventory updates that HRS allows for a rate — see below for an example.

HRS’ update functionalities are complex, so it is important to understand how each room rate operates when mapped to your channel manager — this will be covered in the next section.

If you use the standard SGL and DBL room types in HRS, you can create five types of rates called standard rates: Hot deal , HRS , Special rate , Trade show , and Weekend rate.

Below is a table of the inventory updates that your channel manager sends to each HRS standard rate.

For each of the standard rates listed above, you can create up to three versions.

For example, if you have a “hot deal” rate, two options will appear in the drop-down mapping menu:

If you have other versions, you will also have these options:

“Hot deal (standard category) DBL rate 2”

The versions that have the same name but different numbers are part of the same Rate group. For example, the options above titled "hot deal (standard category) DBL rate 1" and "hot deal (standard category) DBL rate 2" are part of the same rate group, and as a result, they need to be mapped to the same channel manager room type.

💡 Note:

If you want to advertise more than two room types (other than DBL and SGL), you will need to use HRS non-standard rates as they let you offer a greater variety of rooms.

Consider the following when using non-standard rates:

The HRS budget room price is always the price of the cheapest available HRS standard rate on a given day minus the Rebate amount — which acts as a discount — or, if applicable, Rebate percentage.

When mapping a budget room, you will see two fields: Rebate amount and Rebate percentage. These are set at a rate level in your channel manager, not on a daily basis.

💡 If you want rebates to change on a daily basis, they will need to be managed on the HRS extranet. For example:

The 3-bed room and 4-bed room prices are always the price of the cheapest available HRS standard rate on that day plus the Surcharge amount or, if applicable, Surcharge percentage.

When mapping to a 3-bed room or 4-bed room, you will see two fields: Surcharge amount and Surcharge percentage. These are also set at a rate level in your channel manager, not on a daily basis.

💡 Note:

The price of non-standard rates is always set to the price of the cheapest available HRS standard rate on a given day plus the surcharge amount.

When mapping to any other HRS non-standard rate rooms, you will only see the Surcharge amount field, not the Surcharge percentage field.

💡 The superior room category has an additional function for corporate rates — see the section below, HRS corporate rates , for more information.

HRS has strong relationships with corporate partners worldwide, providing special offers such as:

As corporate rates have derivations on the HRS side, inventory updates sent by your channel manager are blocked from the HRS platform for their corporate rates.

HRS has a portal where corporate customers can make bookings; corporate rates are not sold through the public HRS booking system.

For corporate rates, room availability is derived from the public site offerings, and rates are either uploaded directly to the HRS system or derived from publicly available rates. The channel manager therefore does not submit your prices and inventory updates to set HRS corporate rates. Corporate rates are mapped for reservation delivery only.

⚠️ If your HRS corporate rates are not mapped, reservations will be delivered to your channel manager as "superior room" rates. But if your property doesn’t have a “superior room”, the reservation will not be delivered to your channel manager and you will receive an e-mail regarding any unmapped rooms.

Once you have created rooms and rates in HRS, you can map your HRS rates in your channel manager. Mapping rates to HRS is the same as most other channels — see step by step instructions in our Map your room rates article.

Remember: the mapping fields may vary based on the category of HRS rate being mapped.

⚠️ Note:

Understanding which room rate to map to which HRS rate can be difficult, so pay close attention to the names of the rates that appear in the drop-down menus when mapping. You can also refer to the following frequently asked questions for more assistance with mapping.

Normally, the HRS rate is the one mapped to your standard channel manager rate, however your channel manager does not send minimum stay information for HRS rates or Weekend rates. If you want to control your minimum stay from your channel manager, use Special rates or Hot deal as your standard rates instead of HRS rates.

Choose a room with space for two people to be the main room you advertise in HRS, ideally a double room with the highest availability. You should also map a channel manager room rate belonging to this room type to a HRS standard rate with "DBL" in its name.

If you have a room type in your channel manager that can only accommodate one person, you should map it to an HRS standard rate with "SGL" in the name. But if you do not have a room type that only accommodates one person, you should either avoid mapping these SGL rates or map both the SGL and the DBL to the same room type.

⚠️ Due to the way the search function works in HRS, mapping the SGL rate ensures that more reservations are received, however there is a slight risk of overbooking. See the section Unwanted availability duplication for more information.