You have seen it at iHotelier and others. While a One-Page Reservation Process may seem simple and straight-forward, it does incorporate business logic and workflow. From the users’ point of view, they will only access one webpage during the whole booking process, which means this page has to be quite dynamic. The Reservations Workflow will have to be designed and implemented to guide users through the process. Users should also be provided with seamless integration with other internal systems as well as any relevant third party systems.
One-Page Reservation Process
In a typical multi-page booking process, a user may enter the reservations process from a number of different points: from the hotel’s website (using the Quick Reservations functionality), or from a link provided by the sales team, or from a promotional or advertising campaign. But once the user is in the reservations page, he/she typically follows through a linear booking process that loads one webpage at a time and then presents a summary at the end. This can be a tedious and slow process and making changes mid-flow can also be quite a hassle. Even increasing the reservation server’s speed and bandwidth can not remove the user’s perception that they have to wait while another page is being loaded.
A one-page reservation process eliminates the need for loading a new webpage every step and also allows users to see each step in the process and make changes quickly and easily at any time. Typically the user interface is a web-browser friendly client-side application that integrates with a CRS or GDS to get availability, room types, rates, rate descriptions, etc. as well as to communicate back to these systems with other essential reservations information. This application can be developed with JavaScript, however Macromedia Flash is a better environment for this kind of development as it is: 1) more secure, 2) a more robust development tool, and 3) able to provide a more user friendly, interactive experience.
The First Generation of One-Page Reservations
The first generation of this type of one-page reservations processes is provided by companies like iHotelier and SynXis. An example of the iHotelier interface is Hotel Nikko Düsseldorf (is it still there?); see Figure 1 below. An example of the SynXis interface is the Aztec Hotel & Spa Bristol (); see Figure 2. Users can select dates from a calendar, select from available rooms and rates, view photography and description of the room, and enter their details including credit card information – all on one page.
While many of the benefits of one-page reservations are there, these interfaces are platform specific and are more applicable for individual hotels rather than a hotel group. They require the hotel to use specific PMS or to allocate inventory into a separate database that is accessed by the one-page reservations process.
Users Guide
One thing lacking from the first generation one-page reservations interfaces above is a step-by-step guide through the process for visitors. To display the whole interface immediately can be daunting to a user that has never been to the site before or has not used one-page interfaces before. BookingEdge has a demo of a one-page interface that leads a user through the process; see Figure 3 below for a screen capture of the demo.
However this “guide” function should be able to be turned off by advance users and regular visitors.
