In this article, we will discuss the concept of selling dorm beds on a channel/OTA that is designed to work with Hotels instead of Hostels. We will also discuss recommendations and things to consider.
Many hotel-based channels (such as Expedia, booking.com, etc) are designed to market an entire room - not dorm beds. Since they are designed to sell whole rooms only, selling dorm beds requires special configuration.
When selling on these channels, each dorm bed must be listed as an individual "Room" with an occupancy of one (1). So that guests know it's a dorm bed, the name of the room should be something like "1 Bed in a 8-Bed Dorm".
When you market a dorm bed on a hotel-based Channel/OTA, please bear the following in mind:
- The guests will only see these dorm beds if they search for 1 person at a time (see # 1 below). If they search for rooms that have an occupancy of 2 or more, the dorm beds won't appear in their search. This is because the dorm bed is set to a 1 person maximum occupancy.
- If a guest wants to book multiple guests for a single dorm room, they will have to book the same room multiple times (see #2 below).
The channels/OTA's affected by this limitation are:
- Booking.com
- Expedia
- Decolar
- Almost all other Hotel-Based (not Hostel-based) channels
Channels/OTA's that are not affected by this limitation, and can sell dorm beds with standard configuration, include the following:
- Hostwelworld/Hostelbookers
- HostelCulture
- Hostelsclub
- HI Hostels
- HostelTimes
- Possibly others
Note: each OTA dorm room configuration may be slightly different, please consult with your OTA account manager if you have any questions or concerns.
When selling on these channels, dorms need to be configured per the following:
- Create as many individual rooms as you have dorm beds
- The occupancy must be set to 1 person
- The name of the room should be something like "One Bed in a X-Bed Dorm"
Example (for Booking.com)
Let's say you have a dorm room that you want to market on one of these channels.
- 6 Bed Mixed Dorm
When setting the dorm up on the channel/OTA, it should be created like this:
- Create six Individual/Private rooms on the channel/OTA
- Make sure the occupancy of each room is set to 1 person
- Name each of the Private/Individual rooms as "One Bed in a 6-Bed Female Dorm"
An example of how this would look on the Channel/OTA is below
For detailed instructions on how to set up rooms inside myallocator, please see Setting up Rooms.
In the example above of the 6 Bed Mixed Dorm, it would look like this:
Please see Room Mapping Guidelines for detailed information on room mapping.
Mapping is straight-forward, as the Dorm room type in myallocator will match perfectly to the Room Type that you created on the Channel/OTA earlier.
Even though the Room on the OTA is a Private Room with a quantity of 6, the mapping remains the same - mapping in myallocator Dorm room to the Channel/OTA Room Type that you created.
Now that you have mapped the myallocator Dorm Room to the Channel/OTA "Dorms", the Availability will constantly be updated.
Example:
If 1 person books in the 6 Person Mixed Dorm, myallocator will tell the Channel/OTA that only 5 of the beds are left. The Channel/OTA will reduce the number of rooms from 6 to 5.
1: shows how this looks inside of myallocator.
2: shows how this looks on the Channel/OTA Extranet.
3: shows how this looks on the Channel/OTA guest site.
