Building Itineraries

This article guides you through building an itinerary in Tourwriter.

Adding services to an itinerary

After you name your itinerary and choose the travel dates in the Create section of the itinerary, navigate to the Build tab to start adding items to each travel day.

1. Navigate to any date in the itinerary, and click the + sign to open the Add item dialog.
2. Search for services by applying one or more filters detailed in the Advanced search for services section or just type in a Supplier or product name.
3. Select Resource to add an existing resource item or create a new one. See Adding Resource library items to go through steps on adding a resource item.

Note: Resource allows you to add resource items such as Overview, Directions, or Free Time, Overview, Explore or Information to your itinerary. These items do not have any price associated with them but allow you to display a service unassociated with any suppliers. See Resource Library for more.

4. Choose Clear day to delete all items on a particular day.

Note: The Item search defaults to the Service search. To search for a Resource click the Resource sub tab.

Advanced search for services

Advanced search for services from within the itinerary builder lets users add products to their itinerary based on criteria such as location, rating, price range and more. Filter your search results based on the options below:

1. Enter the supplier or product name to view all the services from that supplier.
2. Filter by one or more supplier tags.
3. Select one of the preloaded product types. To view the list of product types in Tourwriter, see Supplier Loading Guidelines.

Note: The Search services window defaults to the Accommodation product type. The Check-in and Check-out search filters are only available on selecting Accommodation product type.

4. Search by the pricing range by selecting a $$$$ rating.
5. Add the relevant supplier industry rating.
6. After setting search filters, select Search to generate results at the bottom of the window.

Note: Select Clear search at any point to reset your search filters.

7. Select a product from the search results to add to the itinerary.
8. Selecting the product lets you view the product options available. For example, options for an accommodation product could include Single, Double, Twin or Triple. You can select more than one option.
9. The quantity can be increased using the + button next to the option.
10. Click Add to confirm the check-in & check-out dates and times.
11. If the Supplier has multiple products available you can take the option to Add another product – More details here
12. Click
    • Save & add another – Click this to Save your work and return to the previous Product search results so you can add another product to the itinerary.
    • Save – to Save your work and open the Build tab so you can review your itinerary.
    • Back to return to the Product search results.

Note: For booking items with multiple options, you can select one as the primary Display option. The Display option will control which publishing displays on the Postcard and Final view.  By default the first item selected will be the Primary option. 

How to set your Display option

When multiple options (or Products) are added together the Display option panel becomes visible so the User can determine which option data displays on the itinerary preview. The Display option panel controls which dates, times, check-in instructions are shown on the itinerary postcard.

1. If multiple Products are added to another, then the Display option selector becomes available.
2. From the drop down select your preferred option to display on the Online Preview and PDF exports.
3. Click either Save or Save & Add another to save your selection.

Note: To ensure any Supplier or Product description edits are no accidentally lost, the Publishing content will only update for the Display option after clicking either Refresh service or Refresh all items via her Preview tab.

Managing itinerary services

Tourwriter lets you modify and shuffle your services on the go for a faster itinerary creation experience. Some of the actions that Tourwriter lets you perform include dragging and dropping individual services or dragging and dropping an entire day. Additionally, you can rearrange services within a travel day and add / remove a day from the start or end of the itinerary. Let’s look at each option in detail:

Drag and drop individual services

• You can now drag and drop individual services and resources across days, aiding in a faster itinerary creation. To drag and drop a service across days, the service needs to be in an inactive booking cycle. An inactive booking cycle includes requests for services that have not been sent to the suppliers yet and cancelled services.

Note: To have the item snap to the grid log ensure you drag the item to the next free slot on the left of the day you want to drag it to. It will not snap if it’s dragged too far to the right.

Drag and drop an entire day

• You can even move an entire day to easily shuffle your itinerary or add a day to the middle of the itinerary. To move a day, all the services in the day should be in an inactive booking cycle.
• If the bookings in a day are in an active booking cycle, the day is locked and cannot be moved.
• When the individual day is shuffled, the items move along with the day in the itinerary order. As such, the pricing is auto-refreshed as per the new date.

Add or remove days

• Add or remove days at the start and end of the itinerary builder grid by clicking the + or – buttons.

Rearrange services within a travel day

• Rearrange services within a day to override the default start-time order for a booking day. The manual reordering is highlighted by an icon displaying 2 opposite arrows in the builder (see highlighted below).

• • Note: If the booking order is manually adjusted by dragging and dropping items along a day row, the shared itinerary does not display bookings as per the start time, but by the newly rearranged order. The manual reorder takes precedence over the start date order, even if you choose to Show Item times in Manage visibility settings while sharing the itinerary publicly.

Products vs Add-ons

The Products section displays all of a supplier’s products and add-ons. You may add a product as an add-on if the product type is different to the supplier type. For example, the Deluxe Suite with product type Accommodation shares the same type as its supplier, Hotel Louise (Accommodation). However, an Airport shuttle with type Transport provided by the hotel can be included as an add-on. Note that any product type can be added as an add-on to a supplier.

Adding an add-on product

An add-on can be added when adding a service to the itinerary.

1. After selecting a product from the search results to add to the itinerary, a window appears at the bottom that lets you add check-in and check-out time and enables the Manage add-ons option.
2. Select Manage add-ons to open the Add-ons window.

Note: The window displays all your products. You may want to add a product with a type different to the supplier type as an add-on. Although, you can even add a product with a type matching the supplier type as an add-on.

3. Select the add-on product and enter a date or a date range for the add-on.
4. Add a time to the optional Time field.

Editing and deleting services

Services added can be edited or deleted once you include them in the itinerary.

1. Select the service added to the itinerary.
2. Make adjustments to dates, times or add-ons as needed.
3. Quickly review the supplier rates by selecting View supplier.

Note: It is a good practice to right-click View supplier to open it in a new tab. Doing so will save you the trouble of going back to the Build page and selecting the service again.

4. You can tick the Hide from itinerary and inclusions option to control the visibility settings of each postcard appearing on the preview of the itinerary.
   • Note: Hiding postcards is a feature that allows you to prevent a postcard from being shown on the itinerary preview. The Fees and Insurance items are hidden by default. The feature lets you hide the postcard on the final itinerary to conceal it from the traveller.

5. Click the green tick to confirm the changes. If you have made a date change, the item will now be displayed on the new day row in the Build tab.
6. To delete an Item click the Bin icon, which flashes red when highlighted. Click Yes delete to confirm you wish to delete the Item.

As noted in the earlier example, booking the accommodation supplier for more than a day displays the booking in the Build tab in grey.

Once the itinerary is built, move on to Itinerary Pricing.