What are room types?
A room type represents a room (or category of rooms) at your hotel. You can set general information for each room type, such as pricing, occupancies, photos, and features. This information can then filter down to your room rates which are the different sell offers for the room type. The room type will control the availability/inventory of all the room rates created under it on the inventory grid.
If your property is a hostel or dormitory and you sell by the bed, we recommend setting up room types as beds — this will enable you to sell the beds individually on your Booking Engine.
Create a new room type
To create a room type please follow the steps below:
Click the Setup tab
Click the Rooms & Rates tile
Click +Create
Under the General tab, enter all of the required fields
Name - name of the room type
Category - select a room type category from the drop-down list
Room Size - enter the size of the room type
Room Size unit - select a size unit from the drop-down list
Bathroom quantity - enter the number of bathrooms for the room
Room View - select a room view from the drop-down list
Smoking Policy - select a smoking policy from the drop-down list
Description - enter a description for the room to be available to the customers on the booking engine
Room Type Configuration - Select the bed type under Add Bed Type for the Room. Click Add Room to add more rooms to the accommodation.
+Add room - click the
link to add another room to the room type
Rates
Default rate - the per night default rate that this room type will be sold for if there are no rates in the inventory
Extra adult rate, Extra child rate, Extra infant rate - extra rates per night for the room type
Minimum rate - the room type will not be sold below the set minimum rate
Occupancies
Included occupants - Enter the number of guests allowed for the set price
Maximum adults/children/infants - Enter the most number of adults/children/infants that you allow to occupy this room type.
Maximum occupants - Enter the most number of people (including children and infants) that you allow to occupy this room type
If applicable, tick the ' Adult required ' option to prevent reservations for rooms without adults
Click +Create
Additional tabs (Features and Photos) will appear across the upper-left of the page.
Note : Icons for the room type configuration settings are displayed on the booking engine. Also, the icons are available only on the Modern (Responsive) version of the Booking Engine. Once you created room types, you can go on and create room rates that you want to sell under the room types.
Set up a room type to sell by the bed, not by the room
If your property is a hostel or dormitory and you sell by the bed, we recommend setting up room types as beds as it will enable you to sell the beds individually on your direct booking engine.
➕ For example, if you have ten rooms in your property and five contain six beds each while the other five have four beds each, you would need to set up two room types like this:
One bed in a six-bed dorm
One bed in a four-bed dorm
Once set up, there would be 30 beds available across all of the six-bed dorms, and 20 beds available across all of the four-bed dorms, meaning that your property would have a combined availability of 50 beds, which would be split between the two room types above, depending on the number of beds available in your Inventory.
To set up a room type to sell by the bed, you must first configure a room type as a bed rather than a room, and create a room rate for it.
Then, to enable this room type as a bed to be visible and bookable on your direct booking engine, you just need to set the availability of the number of beds found in all rooms of the same types in the Inventory.
To do this, follow the steps below.
In your direct booking engine, go to Setup > Rooms & Rates > Room Types > click +Create.
Under Details , enter the following:
Name — give the room type a name and specify its beds (for example, ‘Bed in 4-Bed Male Dorm’).
Category — select ‘ Bed ’ from the drop-down menu.
Room Type Configuration — select the bed type from the drop-down menu.
Description — enter additional details about the bed and the room (for example, ‘This room has 4 single beds and is for men only’). Note: this description is used on your direct booking engine; it is visible to customers.
Rates — enter the default rate per bed, then set the extra adult , child , and infant rates fields to ‘0’. (Note: this must be ‘0’ because only one person can book one bed; if your guests require more beds, they need to book more.)
Occupancies — set Included occupants , Maximum adults , and Maximum occupants to ‘1’. If you permit children and infants, enter ‘1’, otherwise enter ‘0’. We also recommend ticking the Adult required checkbox to prevent children staying at your property without an adult present.
Click on +Create.
Now that you have set up your room type as a bed, you need to create a rate plan in order to set the bed’s price.
To do this, follow the steps below.
Go to Setup > Rooms & Rates > Room Types > find the room type you just created and click +Add Room Rate.
In the Name and Description and inclusions fields, specify that the rate is for a bed, not an entire room. (For example, in the Name field you could enter ‘Bed in a 4-Bed Male Dorm’, and in the Description and inclusions field, ‘This room has 4 beds and is for men only’.
Click +Create.
Your room type and rate plan are now ready to be booked on your direct booking engine, so you just need to set the availability of the beds in Channel Manager, or if you are not using Channel Manager, the Inventory of your direct booking engine.
If you are using Channel Manager, follow the steps below.
In Channel Manager, set up the room type and room rate you just created.
Map the room rate you just created in Channel Manager to the corresponding room rate in the direct booking engine.
⚠️ This step must not be skipped, otherwise the availability of your beds will not be synced between your Channel Manager and your direct booking engine, and the latter will not be able to receive reservations for the beds you have configured.
In the Channel Manager Inventory , add the total availability of beds present in this room type. For example, if you have five rooms of the same kind, with each containing four beds, the total availability of these beds is 20 — because there are 20 beds available across all five rooms combined — so you should enter 20.
Note: when selling by the bed, remember to set the number of available beds, not the number of available rooms; the availability must reflect that of the beds you want to sell.
If you are not using Channel Manager, you must instead set the availability in the Inventory of the direct booking engine.
Once complete, open the live (customer-facing) version of your direct booking engine and check that your beds have been set up correctly and that they are both viewable and bookable. (Learn more: accessing your live direct booking engine.) If functioning correctly, customers will be able to select one or more beds to purchase, depending on the availability you have set on the Inventory grid.
Add or update room type features/amenities
You can display your room features on the booking engine to attract customers attention to the individual room types. The features are presented as "Amenities" on the guest-facing booking engine, and will be displayed as large icons after the guest clicks on the room type name.
Simply configure the room feature display settings from the extranet to make them visible to your customers on the booking engine.
To display room features:
Click Setup
Click on the Rooms & Rates tile
Click on the room type on which you want to display features
Click the Features tab
Select the features that relate to your room type and save.
Please note : features worked differently in the old version of the Booking Engine known as "Modern. You can check your booking engine version in the section Display Preferences under Setup. If you are using Modern, instead of ticking the features of your room, you will need to drag them from "All Features" and drop them either to "Top Five" or to "Other allocated".
Add or update room type photos
You can display room types photos and floor plans for your hotel rooms on the booking engine to give a clear picture of the layout of the different room types.
To upload a photo:
Click Setup
Click on the Rooms & Rates tile
Click on the room type you want to add the floor plan to
Click the Photos tab
Click Choose File under Add new photo select an image file from the popup file browser and click OK (or Choose ), then click Upload
Under the Floor Plans section, click the Choose file button to upload a floor plan image, then click Upload (you can upload up to 3 floor plan images)
Recommended image size : accepted formats are .jpg, .gif or .png. We recommend uploading images sized 1500px width × 2560px height for optimal results.
Edit or Delete a room type
Deleting a room type will remove it completely from the application as well as all the room rates, photos and features attached to it. This will stop guests from booking any sell offer for this room type.
Important: deleting a room type cannot be undone.
To delete or edit a room type:
Click the Setup tab
Click the Rooms & Rates tile
Click the Edit button on the room type you wish to edit or delete
Make the required changes if you want to edit and click Save , or
At the bottom right of the room type page, click on Delete
All existing reservations created for any room rate under the deleted room type will not be removed from the booking engine.