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Shared availability & Combo tours
This is quite an advanced concept and probably not setup when you just get started with TourCMS
Background
TourCMS has two styles of tour date - departures & freesale. Departures are best for most purposes as they enable you to control individual slot prices, availability & special offers. Freesale are ideal when you are using TourCMS for tailor-made tours - or if you have an attraction with unlimited availability and constant pricing
However with departures there are situations where you need availability to be shared between two tours (or two departures). E.g. If you have two tours using the same bus - and the bus capacity is 20, when you sell tour A, tour B also needs to reduce, instantly & automatically. This functionality does that.
The rules are set in Shared Availability section, of Configuration & Setup, in TourCMS
Current scenarios
The following scenarios are covered by the functionality:
1 A: Shared bus
Tour A on the bus
Tour B on the bus
A sale of tour / departure A reduces availability for tour / departure B
A sale of tour / departure B reduces availability for tour / departure A
Ideal where you have a single bus that takes people to a central location and where you run multiple tours
TourCMS supports where you have multiple busses per day - so that e.g. a sale of departure A at 9:30 reduces departure B at 9:30
1 B: Language tour guides, on the same bus
Customer can buy:
A English tour guide
B Spanish tour guide
A sale of tour / departure A reduces availability for tour / departure B
A sale of tour / departure B reduces availability for tour / departure A
Ideal where you want to market as having 2 departures a day, each set to its own language, but its just one availability
2: Shared ticket allocation
Customer can buy:
A Theatre ticket only
B Theatre ticket & dinner
C Theatre ticket & dinner & hotel
A sale of either B or C will reduce the availability on A (theatre tickets)
Ideal where you have a single allocation of ticket stock and you share that between tours or experiences
3: Shared bus with airport transfer zones
Customer can buy on the same date:
Departure 1 - Zone A
Departure 2 - Zone B
Departure 3 - Zone C
A sale of either 1,2 or 3 will reduce availabilty of the transfers on the same date, going to other pickup zones
Ideal where you have a single allocation of ticket stock and you share that between tours or experiences
4: Single tour guide doing private groups
A Hillwalking tour
B Birdwatching tour
Any sale on A will take B off sale
Any sale on B will take A off sale
Ideal where you have a single tour guide but are advertising multiple tours. As the guide can't run multiple tours (in the same timeframe) as soon as one receives bookings, the other goes off sale. Set on the tour setup that the first booking closes the departure (on both tours), and then setup shared availability rule
Future scenarios
The following scenarios may be covered by the functionality in the future:
5: Equipment hire
A Hire for morning
B Hire for afternoon
C Hire all-day
If you only have 20 of the equipment, a sale of A, for the morning, will reduce availability for C all-day
Ideal for boat hire
6: Multi-city bus tour
City A > City B
City B > City C
City A > City C
City A > City B reduces City A > City C
City B > City C reduces City A > City C
City A > City C reduces City A > City B and reduces City B > City C
Ideal for overland expeditions & for multi-stop bus transit operators where you have a maximum capacity of a certain size and you have people getting on and off at different points.
7: Combo tour - Style 1
Tour A
Tour B
Tour C: Buy Tour A & Tour B together
A sale of C will reduce availability for tour A & tour B
A sale of A will reduce availability for tour C (if smaller than B)
A sale of B will reduce availability for tour C (if smaller than A)
Combo tours where you want to advertise a 3rd price (for tour C) but control availability (and produce operational reports) for A & B
8: Combo tour - Style 2
Tour A
Tour B
When both A & B are present in the same shopping cart, add a 10% discount
An alternative way of doing a combo tour. Doesn't create a combo tour that can be marketed though, so will need separate promotion so the customer knows that they will get a discount if they book both together. This approach IS easier though is you have flexible pricing on tour A and tour B (i.e. not the same prices every day) as you don't have to pre-calculate the comobo price up front (as you do for style 1)
9: Single supplement limit
Only 3 single supplement trips on the same tour
Tour A - the tour
Tour B - the single supplement (does not need to be distributed or fully setup bookable standalone)
Set Tour B availability to be 3
When a booking (with single supplement) happens on A, reduce availability on tour B
Maybe just what you need!
Notes
- Currently only counts quotation, provisional & confirmed bookings (not temporary bookings) so there is a (minor) possibility of overbookings. TourCMS to address via a future development
- This functionality does not work if you are checking availability against a 3rd party reservation system.