We are sure you were as excited as we were to see the release of the Sirvoy Website Builder earlier this month. You may have also noticed that the booking engine now has a fresh look and feel and you can try out this new design in «New booking» by switching to the new version. In just a few months, this new layout will replace the old version, so if you have thoughts and feedback we are eager to hear from you!
Better Flow for Guests in Booking Engine and Payments
We have improved the flow to reduce the number of steps in the booking engine. Previously some setting combinations would display a page where guests could choose the amount to be paid after making their booking selections. This meant that even if you only had one option there was an unnecessary action to reach the next step. This has been improved so that guests are now directly forwarded to the payment solution with the amount to be paid. We have also moved all the voluntary actions a guest can take to the confirmation page and have merged it with the review page to provide the guest with more comprehensive information about the booking.
The payment settings for Stripe have been updated to allow for optional payments. The confirmation and review pages now both offer voluntary payments if your settings allow that. Also, previously it was not possible to opt out of full payments, but a setting for that has now been added. If you don’t want to allow for full payments, you can now adjust that in your payment settings.
Coupon Code can now Bypass Payment Requirements
We have added a feature so a coupon code can be used to bypass the payment requirements. This is something that may be useful if you use a third party (e.g. a travel agency) that make bookings on behalf of your guests, and don’t require payments even if your general settings do. There is a new setting on the coupon code that will indicate whether payments should be omitted in the booking flow, and you can select one of two options; to either hide all the voluntary payment options on the confirmation and review page, or to allow the guest to make a voluntary payment. In this way, different categories of guests and travel agencies can tailor their own custom experience.
Google Analytics and Custom JS Event Tracking in the Booking Engine
We have also updated the Google Analytics and custom JS events to use the same naming and events. Thanks to the improved booking engine flow, guests that previously ended up on the payment page due to the settings will now be directed to the confirmation page and will also get the booking_completed event in Google Analytics.
AirBnb and iCal Channel Booking now Supports Automatic Cancellation
Nine months ago we released an update to our AirBnb and iCal integration to detect cancellations on the iCal provider and notify you with an email. Now we are taking the next step and will switch things around: from March 1st, we will automatically cancel the booking if it is detected as cancelled on the iCal Channel instead. You will still get an email informing you about the bookings that have been cancelled, but no action is needed. As with other channels, the bookings that are cancelled in this way will show on the dashboard and on the new cancellation tab in the booking list. In the view booking page you can confirm the cancellation to remove it from the list for easy tracking.
While it has always been important to make sure that any modification of a booking is done on the channels side, please note that this now becomes even more important. Why? It is the channel that manages a channel booking so any changes you make in Sirvoy could be overwritten. For instance, if you change the unit on an iCal booking in Sirvoy to a unit that is not mapped to the iCal channel, this will be interpreted as a cancellation and the booking will be automatically canceled. Should that happen and the booking is still uncanceled on the iCal channel, you can use the new feature we released last month to restore the canceled booking in Sirvoy. See this article for more information about this feature and this article for all important details concerning your iCal connection.
