<%@LANGUAGE="VBSCRIPT" CODEPAGE="1252"%> Direct Connect with Supranational Hotels Ltd. new Gateway system
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Announcement on Build-Your-Own Booking Engine pages
 
1. As an association for hoteliers, we are always looking for innovative ways to help you, our members.
 
2. We all understand how important it is to have a booking engine on members’ websites to capture bookings.
 
3. Currently, members are enjoying from Supranational head office:
     - a standard booking engine with no set up fee;
     - a very low booking fee for bookings coming from the booking engine
 
4.

At the moment, a member (group hotels as well as independent properties) can set up a booking engine in one of the following options:
     - a generic booking engine hosted by us, provided by a URL to link to your “Book” button on your home page;
     - tailor-made booking engine pages hosted by us, that are the look and feel of your web site, which takes time and effort to produce;
     - XML direct data feed from the Supranational gateway system that you and your web developer can take on fully and make your own booking pages within your web site.

 
5. We are pleased to announce that there is now a new option!
 
6. You can now use our build-your-own booking engine pages wizard with minimum effort. You can choose the colours, the fonts and upload your logos to the pages.
 
7. Here is how you do it, via the internet:
 

7.1 First Step
 
  • Go to: http://gateway.snrhotels.com/extranet. You will be at the home page of Supranational Web Services ready to login to the Extranet.
 
  • The User name will be the Hotel Name and the password you enter is the same one that is used to access the members’ area of Supranational site www.supranational.org. If you do not have a password, please contact Michael Smith, michael@supranational.co.uk. Please provide your name, your hotel code and an email address for the password to be sent to.
 
  • At the next page, you will need to enter the 6 character Hotel Code for which these pages are being created.
 
  • Enter your name in the “Name of User” if you are now building the booking engine.
 
  • Type in your website address of the hotel. This appears on the booker’s emails and acts as a link back to your web site.
 
  • Last but not least, you can also choose the display language(s) you want by ticking the boxes of your choice. (We will expand the choice of languages in due course). English is standard.
 
  • Then click “Go”.
 
  • If in doubt, you can open the Help window by clicking the “?” sign.
 
  7.2 Second Step
You will now be in the page design area.
 
  • Logos
    • You will want to insert your own hotel logo onto the booking pages to make it more authentic. The logo should be a .gif image and a maximum size of 200 x 100;
    • You can use “Browse” to go to your files on your computer to find the logo file ready for upload;
    • Then choose where you would like the logo to appear on the booking pages by selecting Left, Centre or Right.
    • Repeat the same steps for the logo you want to appear on the booking confirmation e-mail to the booker. The email logo must be a .gif file and a maximum size of 100 x 50
    • If in doubt, click the “?” sign for help;
 
  • Colours
    This is where you can format the booking engine pages so that its colour scheme matches or comes close to your website’s colour scheme:
 
    • select the colour of your choice for the “Page Background” by clicking the box next to it, and then the click on the colour you want from the “select colour” palette;
    • You should see a colour sample appearing next to the box and a #number representing the colour in the text box;
    • Change the colour if you want to by selecting another from the palette or if you have a particular #number that is used on your web site, then type that number in the box;
    • Repeat the same steps for colour choices of “Heading Background”, and “Buttons”.
    • If in doubt, click the “?” sign for help;
 

Note:    
The “Page Background” refers to the background colour of the webpage where the booking box sits.
The “Heading Background” refers to the colour of the strip where the text “Online Availability and Booking” or “Room Type” or “Price per night” sits.
The “Buttons” refers to instructions such as “Check Now”, where travellers click for the next action.
 
  • Text
    You can choose your text styles (font and size) and colour.
 
    • On “Heading”, choose the font and size from the drop-down boxes;
    • Click on the colour box and click the colour you want from the “select colour” range. Use this as for section b) above.
    • Repeat the same steps for “Main Body” and “Button Text”;
    • If in doubt, click the “?” sign for help;
 

Note:
The “Heading” refers to the heading text on each of the booking pages and they will sit in colour boxes, such as “Online Availability and Booking”, “Room Type”, “Price per night”, and so on; plus the choice of dates;
The “Main Body” refers to the template of data required from the traveller, such as “check-in date”, “no. of nights”, “no. of adults”, “no. of rooms” and also description of rooms, the rates etc. which form the main text on the booking pages;
The “Buttons Text” refers to text instructions such as “Check Now”, where travellers click for the next action.

 
  • When you are happy, click on “Save changes & test your pages”. Again, if in doubt, click the “?” sign for information.
8. Bingo, you have now created a test set of your own Booking Engine pages!
   
9. After clicking on “Save changes & test your pages”, you will see the first booking page.
   
10. You can now go through the pages and create a test booking, using a date well in advance, by following the steps and at the same time, seeing whether the colour scheme and text style fit in with what you want. Please be aware that although the pages are in a test area, the hotel is live and these bookings will appear to the hotel.
   
11. If you have done a booking using your personal e-mail address, you should receive an e-mail from the system confirming your booking. You should see your hotel logo on the e-mail.
   
12. Remember the booking reference number, and the name you have used in the booking. Please then cancel the booking using this information. You don’t want to be charged for the booking!
   
13. If you want to change your colour and text scheme at any point whilst using the booking pages, please click on Design on the menu across the top of the page. You will be taken back to the design page where you can re-select colours and text styles.
   
14. If you chose languages other than English, then the pages can be viewed in the other chosen languages by clicking a language code button on the menu across the top of the page. You will be taken back to the first booking page, where it will now show in the selected language.
   
15. When you are happy with the page design, you can put the pages into the live area by clicking on the Go Live button on the menu across the top of the page. You will be asked to enter a valid email address to receive the URLs that will enable your hotel to link to these new live pages. Once the link has been implemented by your web developer, you are ready to go!
   
16. I hope the above helps. If you need further information, please contact: larraine@supranational.co.uk or cho@supranational.co.uk
   
17. We hope you like this new option and make the most of it to help bring in business to your hotel.
   
18. Please don’t forget that the beauty of our booking engine is that it is free to set up, and the data comes from the Central Reservation System. You don’t need to manage the rates and availability separately saving you time and minimising errors.