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The TravelOptions Tour Operators reservations and sales accounting system is a versatile software package that covers all aspects of the market. It is a system that has been designed for speed of response to booking enquiries, allowing the Tour Operator to give quick and accurate details of availability and price, including all relevant transport and accommodation information. Availability, pricing and costing are quick and easy to set up, and there is comprehensive reporting on all aspects of the Tour Operators business.

It allows the setting up of Brochures (sales periods for various products) for the availability, sale and costing of any combination of the following: Hotel, Apartment, Villa, Caravan, Campsite or any other form of Accommodation; Flight, Ferry, Coach, Rail, Cruise, Excursion, Transfer, Car-hire or any other form of Transport; Insurance, Administration charges, Reductions, Ski-passes, Green fees, Welcome packs or any other type of holiday related supplements or extras.

A booking can be made by linking any combination of the above elements, or any individual element, with various search and scan facilities to enquire on the season, date, resort and type of holiday required. There are no restrictions on the number of elements required to make a booking, from accommodation or flight only to 30 (or more) centre Grand Tours. Nor are there any restrictions on cross season selling, pricing or costing.

Within each Brochure all availability, pricing and costing can be date banded. Pricing can be duration controlled and for holidays containing any form of accommodation both pricing and costing can be linked to the occupancy of the unit booked. Pricing and costing is available at the adult, child, infant and group level and Flight Only can also offer different pricing for ABTA and ATOL agents. Arrival day, occupancy and duration restrictions can be set against accommodation, and duration restrictions and split duration allocations can be set against transport items.

There are 12 different pricing methods to cover different types of holiday, from Flight or Accommodation only to group bookings to simple package holidays to multi-centre or touring holidays.

Costing can be loaded in any currency, with date banded costing exchange rates. These costs are then returned to the base currency (the system can have multiple sales currencies) to give booking level profit and loss.

Booking can be made for Agents and Direct Clients from the same screens. The system maintains a client file where each Direct Client has their own individual reference which stores their address, advertising response details, booking history and profile information. During any booking the client file can be searched to find if they have booked previously. Agents are pre-set with global rates of commission, but this can be overridden at the individual booking level to allow for special reductions or increases.

During any booking any Transport or Accommodation unit is held off from the main inventory the moment it is selected, removing the possibility of overbooking from a multi-user system. If the unit is not optioned or confirmed it is released back into the general pool the moment the user quits the enquiry. From the moment the booking is confirmed all the relevant data files (such as rooming lists, manifests sales etc.) are automatically updated.

All client documentation (ie Invoice, Itinerary, Ticket, Voucher) and operation or Credit Control documentation (ie Manifest, Arrival list, Statement, Overdue list) can be printed or viewed on screen, either individually or by batch - the batch being controlled by various selection options to give as wide a control of printout as possible.

Transport and Accommodation can be set up as Commitment - with allocation details - Freesale - with release back options on accommodation - or Ad-hoc - no allocation and bookings put on request status. All Ad-hoc bookings are put on a queue that can be displayed or printed; in effect showing what bookings or part of bookings have still to be confirmed by the Tour Operator. Once confirmed the booking is removed from the on-request queue. The system also allows for ‘on-line’ creation of Transport or Accommodation items, within the booking. For an Ad-hoc booking this eliminates the need to quit the booking and add the availability via the normal file maintenance. This facility, like many other in the Traveloptions system, can be password and user level controlled.

Overbooking and the updating of prices and commission rates is allowed within the booking system; these facilities are also password controlled - as is entry of payment. All bookings, and price changes to bookings, store the user code of the operator who made the booking or amendment. There are standard Due Dates for bookings within the system, but these can be overridden at the booking level with the relevant authority.

Although holidays can have pre-set itineraries linked to a specific booking code, this itinerary can be amended added to or reduced during the booking, thus allowing the creation of Ad-hoc or Tailor-made bookings. Holidays can be set for specific Transport and accommodation units, or they can be left open to choose any Transport unit available on the route selected, any Accommodation within the resort selected, or any Accommodation from a pre-set group. Any date or duration change made to any stage of an itinerary automatically ripples through to all subsequent stages of the booking.

If there is a reschedule of a Transport stage, ie of a flight number or timing, changing this via Transport file maintenance will automatically update all bookings on that stage.

Any booking, either in progress, optioned or confirmed, can be amended by duration, departure date, party size or any other element without needing to cancel.

Automatic supplementing can be set within the system. Currently several types of Auto-supplement are available, based on Transport item or route, holiday code or type, Accommodation unit, room, occupancy or board type. All supplements, whether Automatic or standard, are date banded for pricing and costing. Any supplement can be manually overridden or cancelled with the relevant authority level. It is possible to produce vouchers for supplements, as well as for Transport and Accommodation items.

There are two background status queues in the system; one that holds details of Credit Cards declined or awaiting approval, the other that holds details of bookings held as On-Request status ie rather than confirming the Accommodation or Transport stage it is either overbooked or requested and held on this queue, which can be used as an Ad-hoc purchase list.

There are several places within any booking for free text to be added. This can be general information for display only, or information relevant to specific stages of the booking. These notes can be set to appear on any or all documentation relevant to the booking, ie invoice, itinerary, voucher, manifest, arrivals list. Pre-set letters can also be attached to the booking that are printed when the booking is confirmed.

There is a comprehensive mailing system for both agents and direct clients. Also a brochure request system which allows all these requests to be transferred to the general client database if required.

Apart from the reports mentioned above there is comprehensive reporting within the Traveloptions system for availability, sales, cost of sales, turnover, aged/forward debt, profit and loss, options, payment allocations, daily booking analysis, CAA statistics, insurance, advertising response, supplements and many others, examples of which can be sent if required. Reporting is structured to allow various sorting and selection options. Client documentation can be batch or individually printed.