Integrated Hotel Availability Date: December 9, 2005
Technical Specification
Integrated Hotel Source
Availability and Rate Ranges
Technical Specification
Prepared by: Sharon J. Thomas
Original Date: 1/18/2006
REVISIONS
S. Thomas / 12/08/05 / Several (in red and bolded in softcopy) / Added new rate plan level X for NET rates. Both request and response have new information.
S. Thomas / 1/18/06 / Expansion of SecuRate plan codes (from 3 to maximum 8)
12/8/2005 2:00 PM Page 18
Integrated Avail and Rate Range Tech Spec 12 08 05
Worldspan CONFIDENTIAL
Integrated Hotel Availability Date: December 9, 2005
Technical Specification
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
I. Background and Business Opportunity 4
II. Integrated Availability 4
A. Assumptions and Dependencies 4
B. Details 5
1. Minimal requirements to obtain an integrated availability 5
2. How Worldspan will select the properties for the list display 5
C. Type A Messages to request and obtain availability status indicator 6
1. Type A message from Worldspan to Hotel Supplier 6
Associate elects for Worldspan to check Hotel Select for /P- 8
Associate elects for Worldspan NOT to check Hotel Select for /P- 8
Associate elects for Worldspan to check Hotel Select security (/PC-) 8
Associate elects for Worldspan NOT to check Hotel Select security (/PC-) 9
2. Type A message from Hotel Supplier to Worldspan 10
D. Integrated Availability Status Display 11
1. Hotel Located in Different Country Indicator (@ - internal to Worldspan) 11
2. Integrated Hotel Source Availability Status Displays 12
III. Integrated Availability with Rate Ranges 14
A. Assumptions and Dependencies 14
B. Details 14
C. Type A Messages to request and obtain availability indicator AND rate ranges 15
1. Type A message from Worldspan to Hotel Supplier requesting rate ranges 15
Associate elects for Worldspan to check Hotel Select for /P- 16
Associate elects for Worldspan NOT to check Hotel Select for /P- 16
Associate elects for Worldspan to check Hotel Select security (/PC-) 17
Associate elects for Worldspan NOT to check Hotel Select security (/PC-) 17
2. Type A message response from Hotel Supplier to WORLDSPAN 18
a. Rate data not valid 18
b. No rate ranges returned 18
D. Screen Display with Rate Ranges 20
Response time outs 23
I. Background and Business Opportunity
Worldspan relies on Hotel Associates to maintain accurate rates, rate rules and availability in the Hotel Select database. Due to emerging trends toward yield management, property controlled rate policies and other complex rate programs, availability and rates often change throughout the day. The hotel list entry displays rates when the /RR option is used (and availability when the /A option is used) based on information stored in Hotel Select. As a result, the rates and availability stored in the hotelier reservation system often do not match the rates and availability shown in the Worldspan Hotel Select system. These inaccuracies frustrate the subscriber.
This Integrated SOURCE availability and rate range products provide interactive availability status information from the hotel supplier reservation system to Worldspan.
The goal is to move from the current environment of accessing the availability and rates solely from Hotel Select to the process similar to seamless availability in AIRLINE SOURCE. The result will be an ‘integrated hotel source availability status’ display for the user when a Hotel List entry is made.
The benefits are a viable product, increased bookings and revenue, system integrity and improved product perception. Integrated hotel source availability (and rate ranges) will simplify the shopping and booking process and increase subscriber productivity.
II. Integrated Availability
Procedurally, agents are encouraged to begin the search for a hotel using the Hotel List (HL). The hotel list displays a list of hotel properties regardless of availability by the user specifying in an input entry: city code, airport code, or a reference point.
If the agent includes the /A option in the list entry (HL with /A option), only those hotels that have availability for certain rate plans and a sampling of lowest available rate amounts will be included in the Hotel List.
However, if the /A option is NOT included in the Hotel List entry, availability is NOT checked and this can lead to frustration for the agents when they attempt to retrieve availability and the Hotel SOURCE response is CLOSED out. This reduces overall confidence in the hotel product, may result in a negative perception of the hotel company and encourages the agent to resort to other methods of obtaining a hotel reservation.
A. Assumptions and Dependencies
Associates must be a Worldspan SOURCE participant (includes type A sells, modifies and availability) in order to use the Integrated Availability status product.
Associates must be able to support Worldspan AccessPLUS/SOURCE response time maximum of 20-25 seconds. This means that the greatest percentage of responses will be successfully returned to Worldspan within this time frame.
Associates will continue to maintain a database in Worldspan Hotel Select.
Integrated availability status will not be applicable when a list entry includes the /A option. Hotel Select availability is automatically invoked when a /A option is part of the list entry.
Associates will be allowed to view other associates integrated availability (i.e. belonging to any chain code).
Hotel Associates must be able to search their reservation system for rate plans that are specified in the Integrated Availability message.
B. Details
Worldspan will obtain the availability status directly from the hotel associate system in order to provide ‘true availability’, prior to showing the property on the screen of the hotel list display.
1. Minimal requirements to obtain an integrated availability
When a hotel list entry is made (HL) with the minimal requirements : date and number of persons the agent will automatically obtain an integrated availability display.
2. How Worldspan will select the properties for the list display
Optional fields which are valid in an HL entry today, will continue to be valid. However, there are differences in how these are applied for non-participants in integrated vs. participants:
a) Worldspan may use some of those optional fields in the property selection (examples are Bed Type, Frequent Guest). This will continue for non-participants in integrated availability.
b) For the participants in the integrated availability, optional hotel list fields which may also be applicable to sell or availability will be ‘held’ and applied to subsequent availability or sell (other than those listed in these specifications).
Behind the scenes, Worldspan will compile the list of hotels to be displayed on the first screen. With this implementation, Worldspan will ‘burst’ a new interactive (type A) message to the Integrated Hotel Source Availability participants that are part of each screen build. The associate will respond to Worldspan with an indicator denoting the property availability status.
Upon receipt of the type A response from the participating hotel associate, Worldspan will populate the availability status column based on the indicator sent to Worldspan.
The participating hotels will be ‘integrated’ with the non-participating hotels in the list display. No indicator will appear in the status column for associates not participating in the integrated availability product.
Based on the availability status in the associate system, an indicator will be returned to Worldspan for one of the following conditions:
¨ A / Available for sale (at least one room type is available based on what is specified in the request)¨ R / on Request
¨ C / Closed out (no availability)
¨ O / Rate plan Other than what was specified in the request is available.
Not for use in response to a request for NET rates or /LVLX.
¨ E / Error (property not found, temporarily locked out etc.). The agent will not see the ‘E’ in the list display. It will be blank or no indicator will be present.
C. Type A Messages to request and obtain availability status indicator
Worldspan will internally determine which properties will appear on the first screen when a list entry is made by an agent. Before the screen is displayed, a message will be sent to all integrated participants involved in that screen, with the property ID and all pertinent information so the associate can respond with an availability indicator. For example, if Worldspan determines that the first screen of the list display will involve eight different hotel associates, eight individual messages will be sent from Worldspan requesting status from each company.
This process will be repeated for subsequent ‘move down’ entries in the list display (HLD), but will not be repeated for other list manipulation entries (HL*, HLU or HLT – these entries are redisplays of information already gathered).
1. Type A message from Worldspan to Hotel Supplier
Field ID / Fixed Length / Max Length / Required / Description / Note6 / X / Session number (6 numerics)
/COM / 3 / X / Partition identifier (numerics)
/LNI / 6 / X / Agent’s LNIATA (alpha/numeric)
/SQN / 5 / X / Worldspan sequence number (alpha/numeric)
/SYS / 1 / X / Worldspan processing indicator
T for test, S for production
/ACT / 3 / X / Request type (‘LI’ for Integrated availability status request) / a
/CHN / 3 / X / Hotel chain code
/CKI / 5 / X / Check-in date (DDMMM)
/CKO / 5 / X / Check-out date (DDMMM)
/PID / 5 / X / Property code (2-5 character alpha/numeric) / b
/LVL / 5 / Rate Plan Code / d
/CID / 20 / Corporate ID manually input by agent
/PC# / 3 / Where # = a number from 1-8 and a SecuRATE Plan code. May occur up to a maximum of 8 times. / e
/CD# / 20 / Where # = a number from 1-8 and contains the associated corporate ID number to the plan code. May occur up to a maximum of 8 times. / f
Type A message from Worldspan to Hotel Supplier (cont’d)
FIELD ID / Fixed Length / Max Length / RQRD / DESCRIPTION / Note/NPR / 2 / X / Number of persons
/NCH / 2 / Number of children in room / accommodation
/TOC / 2 / Total occupants in room / accommodation
/NRM / 1 / Number of rooms / c
/BSA / 8 / X / IATA number from agent AAA
/BSM / 8 / IATA number manually input by agent (if no /BSA is sent a /BSM will).
/BSC / 3 / X / Pseudo city of agent AAA
/BSI / 2 / X / Agent initials/sine
/COU / 2 / X / 2 char ISO Country code from agent AAA
1 / X / EOM character c'+' (ASCII x'2B')
a. The /ACT field will be sent with a 2 character identifier for Integrated Availability ‘LI’.
b. This field is a recurring field and may appear up to a maximum of 8 times within one message.
c. The number of rooms field /NRM will not be sent in the type A message unless the user has specified a number in the /N field of the list entry. The hotelier will always assume one room unless otherwise specified.
d. Up to five 1-character rate plan codes may be sent in the /LVL field of the request message. The associate will be required to respond with an indicator based on the rate plan(s) specified by the user. If no rate plan(s) are specified in the entry, then the associate will apply whatever search parameters they would normally apply for a Hotel SOURCE response to Worldspan[1].
These are the rate plans from which the booking agents can make their selection:
GEN (A) - RACK GENERAL
SEC (N) - SECURATE
COR (C) - CORPORATE
PRO (P) - PROMOTIONAL
GVT (G) – GOVERNMENT
NET (X) – NET rates
SNR (S) - SENIOR CITIZEN
TVL (I) - TRAVEL AGENT RATES
TUR (T) - TOUR¬
PKG (K) - PACKAGE
CNV (V) - CONVENTION¬
MIL (M) - MILITARY
WKD (W) - WEEKEND¬
Note: A request from Worldspan for rate plan ‘X’ will never be accompanied by another rate plan.
Associate elects for Worldspan to check Hotel Select for /P-
At the request of the associate, Worldspan can check the Hotel Select system to verify if there is at least one rate loaded for any of the rate plans specified. If that is the case, all the rate plans entered will be sent to the associate. If there is no rate loaded for any of the rate plans specified, those properties will not be included in the list display.
If certain chains are specified in the entry and they do not have at least one rate loaded for any of the rate plans entered in the /P-, the response will be:
no property qualifies for fields requested..change entry
Associate elects for Worldspan NOT to check Hotel Select for /P-
If the associate opts NOT to have Worldspan check the Hotel Select system, Worldspan will expect the associate to search on the plan codes and respond with an availability indicator based on what has been specified.
e. Plan codes will be placed in the /PC1, /PC2 etc. up to a maximum of 8 occurrences. The /PC fields in the request message will be sent in the order in which they were input. A plan code(s) for which the booking agent is not ‘valid’ will still occupy a place in the request message, e.g. three plan codes are input but the agent does not qualify for the 2nd plan code. The 1st and 3rd plan codes input will be sent in the request message: /PC1 and /PC3. (same as SOURCE specifications today). If the plan code(s) requested are not available, but something is available, the associate should return an ‘O’ indicator for Other.