Making Bookings and Emailing Suppliers

The Booking feature in Tourwriter lets users on a Tourwriter Plus plan assign a status to each itinerary booking. You can group or ungroup itinerary bookings before sending them to the Supplier. This article introduces you to the Booking feature in Tourwriter and guides you through the steps to send a booking request to a Supplier.

The Manage Booking section

After you choose the travel dates in the Build section, move to the Manage section to organise your itinerary bookings.

• To access the Bookings section, switch to the Bookings subtab.
• The window lets you filter bookings by Booking Status or Product Type.

Grouping Bookings

The Grouping feature lets you book multiple services offered by a Supplier by sending them a single email. Items are grouped by supplier by default.

• Bookings grouped by a Supplier email displays an icon under the Type column detailing the number of Product items, as highlighted below.

• You can ungroup a booking to send separate emails for each item. Click the Option menu (three dots) at the end of the row and select Ungroup Items.

Warning: Once ungrouped, you cannot group the items again.

Manually Assigning a Booking Status

In Tourwriter, bookings are assigned a status. Set a Booking status in bulk to track its progress.

• Select one or more bookings to activate the Change status button.
• Click the Change status drop-down menu and select a status from the following categories: Availability, Booking, Amendment and Cancellation.
• Once selected, the status of the booking appears in the Status column.

Note: If the booking status has changed more than once, you can click the History Clock icon to view the Booking history in a separate window.

Editing a Booking

The Edit Booking window offers various Booking options.

1. Select the Option menu (three dots) at the end of the row and choose Edit Booking. The Edit Booking window is displayed.
2. Add the following details:
   • Booking status: Select a Booking status from the from the drop-down list.
   • Booking reference. Manually enter the Booking reference number. Add a confirmation number once you confirm the booking. Additionally, if you use the Supplier Confirmation feature, this field automatically updates.

• Note: Ungrouping bookings lets you assign a unique booking reference for each booking.

• • Private note: Add a personal message for an itinerary Collaborator.
  • Note from supplier: Add information that your supplier passes on to you. The field automatically updates if you use Supplier
  • Note to traveller: Add information to pass on to the travellers.
    • The note to travellers only appears on final itineraries for items with one of the following booking statuses:
      • Availability confirmed
      • Booking confirmed
      • Booking confirmed from allotment
      • Amendment confirmed
      • Cancellation confirmed
      • Cancellation confirmed with fee
  • Note to supplier: Add a message in the body of the email that’ll be sent to the supplier.

3. Click Save to confirm.

The Send booking section

Review the booking details in the Send booking section before sending them across.

1. Select one or more bookings to activate the Send bookings button. The Send booking section is displayed.
2. Choose an option from five different booking cycles.

Note: The Booking cycle chosen determines the booking status, once sent. An introductory sentence in the email appears based on the Booking cycle.

3. Edit the following details:-
   • The Included details drop-down lets you hand-pick details to add to the email body.
   • The Email display options drop-down lets you mark an email copy to yourself. To do that, tick the Bcc to sender checkbox. Group emails by recipient email address through the Group by recipient option, so you don’t send multiple emails to the same address. For example, if you have set up multiple hotels from the same hotel chain and they are being booked through a central reservations email.
   • The Override global settings option lets you override the email settings.
   • The text in the Note to supplier field, added in the Edit Booking window can be overwritten in the Send booking section.

Adding Confirmation to your Booking Request

When selecting the Enable supplier confirmations option in the email settings, Tourwriter will add a hyperlink to your booking request email(s).

Please refer to the example email below:

Supplier confirmation page

The supplier receiving the email has the option to click the hyperlink to choose one of the following: confirm, decline, waitlist or provisionally hold a booking request. The supplier can enter a confirmation number and add additional information in the note field. The information is then accessible in the Note from supplier field in the Edit Booking window.

Note: When the supplier chooses to provisionally hold a booking, they can also enter the provisional hold expiry date.

After the supplier logs all information, you will receive a courtesy email outlining details they have entered. Please note that the courtesy email received is for your records, all details are automatically logged in Tourwriter.