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Most accommodations in remote areas are booked well in advance. Generally, touristsseem to like making bookings directly with the accommodation owner instead of centralised booking via travel agencies (especially domestic tourists).
Areservation request can arrive by phone (see the conversation framework in A2.Communication Dialogues), e-mail or fax, and in any case you should be able toanswer promptly with a definite yes or no. To give a quick answer as well as to avoid mistakes, you need to know the exact situation of the occupancy of your rooms at any moment. It can be useful to make a graph or a table with reservations taken (see the table below). Such a simple table can be made either in Excel or on paper with a pencil. It gives you an immediate overview of all the rooms booked and available over several months, and allows for introducing changes.
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You should also make your own standard booking confirmation form. One of the ways to do it is to introduce some wording and formulas in the Excel format (see an example further in the text). You should develop booking confirmation in a way most suitable for your services and handling by your staff.
Alternatively, you can arrange on-line booking. Search of accommodation to stay and bookings are getting more and more frequently done via the Internet. Usually bigger accommodations have on-line booking system. This is very convenient for both clients and entrepreneurs, since clients immediately get the reply to their booking inquiry and can see the status of their booking on the Internet any time, while the personnel do not spend time on individual responses to bookings – it is done automatically.
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4.1.1. First Contact | Payment and Reservation Types |
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