I keep running into missing space feature classifications to finally make full use of the “Preferred space feature” assignment strategy and the “Optimize space allocation” function Mews.
I went through 25 hotels and checked for space features that most hotels seem to have/would be able to make use of.
Please use this thread to let me know if I am missing anything important. I will then add this to the existing feature requests in the comments and share the link so we can all upvote. ;-)
These are my findings (excluding the ones that already exist):
So I am not sure if “Optimize space allocation” function that is available in Enterprise Subscriptions will do as we like (considering the guests preferences).
Another thing that is making use of space features a little difficult is that for most OTA reservations received via ChannelManager no feature preferences for the guest are set up in their profile (as it’s a new profile most of the time) and the feature preferences are sent as a comment in the reservation notes only. Thus, even if manually adding the preference to the guests profil, it won’t automatically affect space allocation, as the room is allocated right away when the reservations is received. Hence, manual intervention / reassingning the room is necessary…
Sooo … would be cool to get OTAs and CM and PMS to agree on a common standard for room features … but, that’s not going to happen soon.
Therefore, MEWS could make it easier for us if once a feature preference has been set in guest profile with an active reservation, the room assignment would be triggered again automatically.
Is my observation correct? Am I missing something ?
Kind regards,
JP.
Good morning!
First of all, thank you for starting this topic. I had already started another topic, but I’m going to ask the question again here. Is it possible to link specific room classifications to a guest? For example, when I add 'balcony' to the guest profile, will Mews automatically assign the reservation to only the rooms with a balcony?
Kind regards,
Pierrick Robyn Hotel Pavillon Du Zoute Knokke-Heist (Belgium)
Hi @Pierrick ,
Exactly. There’s a few things that need to be set up correctly in order for this to work.
Create a space feature for your balcony room(s) in your bookable service
Link that space feature to the room(s) it applies to
Choose the classification “Balcony”
In the customer profile under “Internals” you can choose the guests “Preferred space feature” (i.e. “Balcony”)
In your bookable service settings, set the reservation assignment strategy to “Preferred space feature”
Now everytime you make a reservation for this guest, Mews will try to assign a room, that has this space feature (if there is one within the booked category)
You can also, when creating reservations manually, type your space feature into the “Space” box in the new reservation screen on on the right hand side above your rate groups, and already select a room, that has this feature. (Don’t forget to “Lock” the room after reservation creation)
Let me know if you need any help with that.
Unfortunately, the Classifications for those space features, that we need in order to make this work, are currently quite limited, which is why I would like to provide Mews with a list of Classifications that would generally work for most hotels.
Hope this helps and happy to hear your input!
Best Svenja
Hi @j.spiess,
That’s correct, if you don’t have the “Optimizie space allocation” feature, you’d be reliant on the profiles with the preferred space feature already existing in order for Mews to be able to automatically assign the “right” room.
For WBE bookings this also shouldn’t be a problem, if the profile already exists.
For OTA bookings, there is nothing Mews can do, as they will always create a new and thus empty profile because they keep creating new email addresses that Mews won’t be able to merge automatically.
But I do agree, another Feature request could be that Mews updates upcoming reservations of a guest (if not locked), when the preferred space features of that guest have been updated.
But that another story and I’d like to first extend the classifications so that more people can make use of them at all ;-)
Hope that helps!
Best Svenja
Hello @Svenja !
OK, yes, step-by-step
So the ”Optimize space allocation” feature in Enterprise does make use of space features, contrary to the documentation?
For the OTA-bookings: I think a better use of AI Technology (instead of an often pointless summary in the profile) would be to have the AI ingest the OTA Reservation notes content and assign guest preferences accordingly right at the time of reservation creation before room assignment ..., I would believe that should be theoretically possible with todays AI capabilities… just a crazy idea.. ;-)
Best regards,
JP.
Hi @j.spiess
It does, but only the “hard-coded" preferred space feature, I guess what the documentation is referring to are guest preferences that are just in the notes, as there is no connection to a functionality. But those should always be locked anyway, as stated in the documentation.
And I agree with you that it WOULD be way cooler, if Mews could solve the OTA madness instead of summarizing the customer profile, but it’s probably a slightly harder thing to do, as numerous parameters would have to be analyzed and decided if a profile is supposed to be merged. Plus, if we already collected an actual email address I would want that to be the one that’s kept instead of the next new OTA-mail, etc.etc…
There’s lots of things that would be way cooler, but I am trying to go for the low hanging fruit right now in hopes that those can be implemented short term without any changes to the system logic itself.
Fixed values for stuff like this make absolutely no sense in a system like mews ... every hotel is different, some need “sea view”, for others it is completely pointless.
You can gather points someone wants in that list all day long, but a customizable taxanomy in effect is the only thing that makes sense here.
There is already the “resource features” which are set on service level that could be used for this. In my opinion the preferences settings in the profiles and automated room assignments should use that instead of a fixed list. Also room filters in the timeline based on that and maybe a integration like @j.spiess suggested would make sense.
It feels like MEWS just have outgrown that fixed list as an application.
@jones.eth I agree that it would be best, if we could only use the self-created space features on the bookable service level but as that’s not the system logic right now, I’d still like to be able to make more use of them by using the space feature classifications. Only right now, while there is “sea view”/“ocean view”/“river view”, which probably the minority of hotels even have, but not one for things like “allergy room” or “pet friendly room”, which most of the hotels have.
So while I have much higher wishes and expectations of certain features, I’d still like to present an option that can enhance the current logic, while we are waiting for them to overhaul the feature completely. And adding a few things to a list (as generalized as possible, so hotels can use it as they see fit, I have one client that uses “upper bed” for special Airline Crew rooms for example, because they won’t be using that anywhere else, but you can only go so far in using them for something comletely different before it gets way to complicated).
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