Integration of Hotel Room Reservation and Travel Agency

Transcription

1 Integration of Hotel Room Reservation and Travel Agency Sam Sun Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, National Tsing Hua University, No. 101, Section 2, Kuang-Fu Road, Hsinchu, Taiwan 30013, R.O.C Abstract. The partial source of economy in a certain country relies on sightseeing tours, especially in major tourist cities. For their stance, the earnings from tourism occupy a principal proportion in total income. Whether hotels can operate well or not and their cooperative relationship between travel agencies are pretty essential. The marketing department in hotel is to contact with travel agency, which is a key process. The staff in this department often promote their own advantages and price, and sign Cooperation Agreement with travel agency. Of all factors, price is in first place; therefore, hotels should grasp each group price form travel agencies, relating with group quantity and scale. The dominant travel agency, larger quantity agency, will absolutely offer properly lower price to catch more attention. Hotels also can offer group meal corresponding with travel agency. Applying to those ideal thoughts will make sure to maintain cooperation relationship between travel agency. Hotel offers travel agency commissionable prices with guaranteed payment to appeal to traveler.in the off season, travel agency attends hotel; By contrast, hotel provides discount price for travel agency in the high season, which creates a win-win situation. Keywords: Hotel, Travel Agency, Integration, Online Reservation.

2 1. Introduction Hotels are primarily a place for traveler to briefly overnight, in addition to providing an accommodation, some of them also provide restaurant, swimming pool and nursing infant service. Some hotels provide conference facilities to appeal to commercial organization to hold meeting, interview and press conference, and the ballroom can hold wedding and prom. On the whole, hotels provide accommodation, catering service, commercial service, vacation and conference service. Their effect include forming travel activities foundation for traveler, generating income from tourism, creating employment opportunities to society, promoting social consumption and developing structure of consumption, motivating development of others industry. The most important of all, level of hotel development is a mark for developmental level of tourism and degree of social economy and civilization. Next, travel agency is a profit organization. It specializes to handle departure, arrival, visa and reception for traveler. Travel agency is like a bridge or link to string together catering, accommodation, schedule, purchase and entertainment, connecting all of departments to contact closely. They are organizers in tourism activities, systematically assisting a trip to smoothly advance, and serving as a sales channel to advocate products from tourist resort. While return to reality aspect, nowadays, life of the modern is relatively so busy that it is filled with tremendous pressure for modern people. We even don t have any time to take a deep breath, let alone arrange a trip. Therefore, we need to be helped by someone else. That is, we, travelers, just need to sit in front of computer and integrate our own preference in a few minutes, and click. A wonderful travel will be immediately presented. Generally speaking, a common hotel only offers rooms for travelers to briefly overnight. They won't intervene travelers' schedule. However, if travelers themselves are too busy to arrange a trip, a variety of tours provided by hotel is certainly a great idea. After picking up room on the website, then travelers can select a tour which they prefer. This thought not only saves travelers' time to arrange a trip but makes a fortune for hotel. 2. Model 2.1 AS-IS Behavior Model

3 First of all, using AS-IS model to illustrate condition that travelers have to arrange their own trip after making a reservation. It could be a tedious process. The whole AS-IS model is shown in Figure 1. The activities and objects are shown in Table 1 and Table 2. Activity Description Select hotel Comparing several of hotels info and selecting one of them. Select room Traveler selects type of room. Make a reservation Traveler makes a reservation for hotel, and gets receipt from it. Select travel agency Comparing several of agencies info and selecting one of them. Select journey Traveler selects category of trip. Make a application Traveler makes a reservation for travel agency, and gets receipt from it. Table 1. Details of activities in AS-IS model Object Description Traveler People who want to take a trip. One particular hotel Hotel is selected by people to overnight. Room information Room is selected and presented its information for traveler. Transaction data Receipt presented for traveler to check detail. One particular travel Travel agency is selected by people to participate in. agency Journey information Trip is selected and presented its information for traveler. Application form data Receipt presented for traveler to check detail. Table 2. Details of objects in AS-IS model

4 Figure 1.AS-IS Process Behavior Model Besides, select hotel and select travel agency can be drilled down as shown below in Figure 2,3. At first, traveler compares several of hotels info and selects one of them, and simultaneously compares several of travel agencies info and selects one of them.

5 Figure 2.Drill down of select hotel Traveler checks hotels information and makes a decision to select one particular hotel, and then enters next procedure. Figure 3.Drill down of select traveler agency Traveler checks agencies information and makes a decision to select one particular agency, and then enters next procedure. Then, after selecting hotel and travel agency, traveler selects type of room and category of trip in the same time. Finally, when they finish previous procedures, they respectively make a reservation for hotel and travel agency, and get receipts from two departments. However, I think that is a complex and tediously long process. We need to simplify itself to save more time.

6 2.2 TO-BE Behavior Model Then, using TO-BE model to describe situation that travelers can add to package tour after booking a room. It may save time to arrange a trip very much. The whole TO-BE model is shown in Figure 4. The activities and objects are shown in Table 3 and Table 4. Activity Description Select hotel Comparing several of hotels info and selecting one of them. Select room Traveler selects type of room. Check if add package tour Traveler compares every journey and selects favorite one. Make a reservation Traveler makes a reservation for hotel, and get combined receipt. Table 3. Details of activities in TO-BE model Object Description Traveler People who want to take a trip. One particular hotel Hotel is selected by people to overnight. Room information Room is selected and presented its information for traveler. Trip information One of journey is selected and presented its information for traveler. Receipt data Receipt includes room and journey presented for traveler to check detail. Table 4. Details of objects in TO-BE model

7 Figure 4.TO-BE Process Behavior Model Besides, select hotel and check if add package tour can be drilled down as shown below in Figure 5,6. In TO-BE model, we integrate two different departments into one process. At first, traveler alike compares several of hotels info and selects one of them. Figure 5.Drill down of select hotel Traveler checks hotels information and makes a decision to select one particular hotel, and then enters next procedure. After selecting type of room, traveler continually decides what kind of journey they prefer, which provided by travel agency. This procedure will save much time because traveler doesn t have to look for agency by themselves.

8 Figure 6.Drill down of check if add package tour Traveler compares every journey and selects favorite one. Finally, they make a reservation for hotel, and get combined receipt, which includes room and journey presented for them to check detail. 2.3 AS-IS Organization Model Figure 7. AS-IS hotel s organization model The AS-IS hotel s organization model is shown in Figure 7. The organization includes several departments such as management department, personnel

9 department, traveler service department, purchase department, marketing department and finance department. The traveler service department is in charge of consulting with travelers and dealing with the orders. Figure 8. AS-IS travel agency s organization model The AS-IS travel agency s organization model is shown in Figure 8. The organization includes several departments such as management department, personnel department, traveler service department, ticketing department, marketing department and finance department. The ticketing department is to help make reservations like meal or ticket, and compare schedule and price with others agencies.

10 2.4 TO-BE Organization Model Figure 9.TO-BE Organization Model The TO-BE Organization Model is shown in Figure 9. The organization includes several departments such as management department, ticketing department, personnel department, traveler service department, purchase department, marketing department and finance department. It integrates organization models of hotel and travel agency into one organization model, making more convenient for travelers and eliminating some affairs between those two organizations.

11 2.5 Object Model Figure 10.Object model Figure 10 is the object model in business process, including objects such as customer information, order list, staff information and inventory data. There are few items included in each object, name, address, contact information, charger are the items of traveler s information. Check-in date, quantity, Check-out date, customer and staff s information are the items in order list. Name, department, age, gender, address and phone number are the items in staff s information. Inventory level, order list and staff s information are the items in inventory data. If items in different objects are related, items can be directly connected to each other across different objects. Arrows in the figure shows the connection between them.

12 3. Simluation Results Figure 11.AS-IS model simulation chart Figure 11 is the simulation result of AS-IS model, it obviously shows the costs and time spent on each activity in business process. The total cost of the AS-IS model is $3810 dollars, the total processing time is 24.3 hours. Figure 12.TO-BE model simulation chart

13 Figure 12 is the simulation result of TO-BE model, same as the AS-IS model chart, it shows the costs and time spent in each activity in business process. The total cost of the TO-BE model is $1710 dollars, the total processing time is 17.5 hours. Obviously, we can tell from the above two simulation charts that total costs and time consumption will be reduced if we adopt TO-BE model as our business porcess. 4. Online Reservation System of Hotel Our idea is to build up a website linked with SQL database. The website is mainly about presenting hotel information, journey information and provide combined reservations with an online system. When travelers enter website, they will see the member login page.(shown in Figure 13) All members will be required to insert their member account and password before they make reservations. Figure 13.Homepage For new members (without an account), they have to click the register button to sign up a new account, and the system will inform you to read the registry notice before applying, then confirm and move on to next step.(shown in Figure 14)

14 Figure 14. Registry notice Figure 15 is member registration page. New members are required to fill in their information into the blank, such as member account, password, name, gender, address, phone number, and photo. Figure 15.Member registration page.

15 Fill in the blanks according to the steps in the above picture, the member account (1.) and password (2.) will be used to login the website. Members can also update photos to their own profiles. First of all, they have to click the browsing button (9.) and select their photo from local computer, after selecting, click the update button (10.) to upload the photo, the photo on the right hand side shows how it looks after uploading. Finally, click the add member button (11.) and complete all register steps. If we select the back button, it will return to the previous page. After completing all register steps, the system will show the information of your success, and you can use new account to login the website. In the website, there are four kinds of room for traveler to select. All types of room and price are being listed in the webpage(shown in Figuer 16), travelers are available to choose and press select button for what they need. Figure 16 Webpage of room information

16 If we want to book a Japanese style room, click the select button, and the system will output confirm message(shown in Figure 17), then click the reservation confirm button to view order list(shown in Figure 18). Figure 17. Step of selecting one particular room Figure 18.Order list

17 The list shows information about type and price, and then input detail for check-in date, payment term. If travelers have other requirements, they can write it into the remarks column below, then press confirm button to finish the order. After selecting room, travelers press package tour button(in Figuer 16, the button on the far right), and webpage will show four kinds of package tour(shown in Figure 19), then traveler can select favorite one. Figure 19.Webpage of journey information

18 If traveler wants to comprehend detail about certain one tour, they can press information button to see more information. Information includes picture, schedule and map, and each package tour has its information.

19 After selecting room and package tour, traveler press confirm button to finish the order, and the website will present your receipt, including type of room, journey, their respective price and total combined price(shown in Figure 20). Figure 20.Blanket order To hotel, they can record all orders and check every person s reservation through database, for everyone has its unique information and order list in hotel s database(shown in Figure 21), which is convenient for they to manage. Figure 21.Database from one of travelers

20 5. Conclusion In this case, we have successfully integrated hotel reservation and travel booking into an online reservation system. As presented on the website. To improve quality of life, we badly want to save travelers' time and yield profit to hotel, which creates a win-win situation. Furthermore, our website will continually launch new types of room and journeys, generating others new combinations, which makes traveler have a diversity of options to select.