Your mapping configuration settings must match what you’ve set on your HRS extranet. This includes any rebates and surcharges (where applicable). This is because your Channel Manager will overwrite information on HRS once the connection is enabled and you don’t want to lose your settings.

HRS doesn’t have room types like your Channel Manager does. Instead, each rate handles its availability separately. It's important to understand the room types and occupancy as well as the rate categories unique to HRS before you start mapping. This ensures a smooth connection process and helps prevent overbookings.

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

If you want to have more than these two room type options, you will need to use HRS non-standard rates.

Since 3-bed and 4-bed room HRS non-standard rates won’t allow single occupancy they cannot support SGL rates.

When searching HRS to find rooms, guests can filter their search by the number of travellers that will be allocated in a certain number of single or double rooms.

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

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

When booking, potential guests will first 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. This means if you are mapping one Channel Manager room type to both the SGL and the DBL,the price between the two rates should not be different. The separated occupancy price is handled by the breakfast price instead.

You can set up the breakfast price in your HRS extranet, but your Channel Manager won’t be able to update it. Depending on your contract with HRS this may mean the price will be fixed for the year.

Every rate in HRS manages its own inventory and availability. In contrast, your Channel Manager separates your inventory, or room type, from its pricing, or room rates.
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As you can see in the diagram above, HRS treats both mapped room rates as though they had their own inventory. When connecting two rates mapped to the same room type, HRS duplicates the room type’s availability for each rate. While the actual availability of double rooms is 2, the duplication in HRS has created a total of 4, creating a risk of overbooking.

It’s for this reason we recommend mapping only one rate for every room type to HRS.

This kind of overbooking will only happen if too many rooms are booked at once, or more than one reservation for the same room is booked at the same time on the channel. If rooms are booked incrementally the availability will decrease after each booking reducing the risk of overbookings.

When mapping, you will see what inventory updates HRS allows for that rate. HRS supports various room rate functionalities:

Understand how each room rate behaves when mapped to your Channel Manager by reading the below:

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 your Channel Manager sends to each HRS standard rate:

⚠️ We advise not to use Rate groups when connecting HRS to your Channel Manager. However, if you need to use them for certain functionalities within the HRS extranet, you should map all the rates within the same Rate group to the same room type in your Channel Manager. Otherwise, your Channel Manager won’t recognise the correct room type of a reservation made for one of these rates. This creates a high risk of overbooking.

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

For example, if you have a "hot deal" rate, it will appear in the mapping drop-down menu as:

However, if you have other versions, you will also have these options:

All these versions sharing the same name but numbered differently are part of the same Rate group. In the example, "hot deal (standard category) DBL rate 1" and "hot deal (standard category) DBL rate 2" are part of the same rate group. Therefore, they need to be mapped to the same Channel Manager room type.

Reservations made for both these rates will be sent by HRS with no indication of whether the reservation was for rate 1 or rate 2 (aside from the different price). They will simply be labelled as "hot deal DBL".

If you wish to advertise more than two room types (other than DBL and SGL), you will need to use HRS non-standard rates. These allow you to offer a wider variety of rooms.

What you need to consider 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 or Rebate percentage (if applicable). The rebate acts as a discount.

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 price is always the price of the cheapest available HRS standard rate on that day, plus the Surcharge amount or Surcharge percentage (if applicable).

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

If you want surcharges to change on a daily basis, they will need to be managed on the HRS extranet.

In the HRS system, any room that can hold two or more guests is considered a double room. Guests searching for 3-bed or 4-bed room accommodation will be able to find these DBL rates.

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 below for more information: HRS corporate rates.

HRS has strong relationships with corporate partners worldwide and provides special offers such as:

Any corporate customer who is part of the club will have access to the corporate club rates.

With a corporate discount, the final price of the booking will be derived from the cheapest available public rate for the room and category.

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

HRS has a portal for corporate customers to make bookings and corporate rates are not sold through the public HRS booking system.

For corporate rates, room availability is derived from the public site offerings. Rates are either uploaded directly into the HRS system or derived from publicly available rates. For this reason, your Channel Manager 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, the reservations will be delivered to your Channel Manager as "superior room" rates. 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 room.

For more information, see: HRS corporate website.

Please note:

Once you have created rooms and rates in HRS, you are ready to map your HRS rates in your Channel Manager.

Keep in mind the mapping fields may vary based on the category of HRS rate being mapped.

⚠️ To ensure you are mapping the correct room rate to the HRS rate, it is important to pay close attention to the names of the rates that appear in the drop-down menus when mapping.

Normally, the HRS rate is the one mapped to your standard Channel Manager rate. But, your Channel Manager does not send minimum stay information for HRS rates or Weekend rates. If you wish to control your minimum stay from your Channel Manager, it’s better to use Special rates or Hot deal as your standard rates instead of HRS rates.

You should choose a room with space for two people to be the main room you advertise in HRS. Usually a double room with the highest availability. You should map a Channel Manager room rate belonging to such a 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.

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.