New scam alert!

/in ,

Scamming is becoming increasingly sophisticated and so have to be more alert and find out how we protect ourselves.

 

Beware of the latest scam

 

One of the newest ways that scammers are targeting people is to intercept invoices, edit banking details and send it to “customers” for payment. Recipients of the emails think it is legitimate and pay the money into the scammer’s account.

 

How can you prevent this happening to you?

 

Investec recently published an article on this kind of fraud with tips on how to protect yourself.                   

 

  • Let your current and new clients know that if they even receive any correspondence announcing a change in bank details, advise them to contact you and verify you are banking details before they pay.

 

  • You can also consider leaving your bank details off your invoices and call clients to give them this information instead.

 

  • If you are an individual who is supplying banking details, do not email invoices with bank details. Rather give your banking information directly over the telephone.
  • Watch out for phishing scams. What is a phishing email and how to spot it?
  • Setup checks on your email like two factor login verification.

 

We hope that this information is helpful and will be useful in protecting yourself against scammers.

The year that was, 2018

/in , , , ,


2018, what a year! It seemed to fly by Batman on his way to Gotham! Our ever growing team gained several new staffers, John came on board as a junior Developer, Carlos strengthens the Dev Maintenance team, Sam and Jason became a full-time Testers, Brad and Dylan joined the Data ranks full time and Chantel has filled a Support team role full-time and Nathan adds to the Support consulting crew. Simone is our new Brand and UI designer.

John donates blood; Dylan and Chantel get into the Halloween spirit and Brad finds his desk in full festive spirit! 

We also had a department shuffle with Technical forming its own department and Mike passing the Development lead baton on to Nicol. Some of the Empangeni crew joined the Kloof office ahead of combining both offices in Kloof next year.


Nicol, Tash, Simone and Kristen get creative for Halloween!

ResRover, our mascot, was welcomed into the family and immediately went travelling to trade shows all around Africa, namely Pearl of Africa, WTM Africa, Indaba, Kilifair, Magical Kenya and S!TE and we also visited several clients on our travels and ResRover racked up a few passport stamps.  

ResRover also helped start our Instagram page this year. We share behind-the-scenes photos of ResRequest life as well as photos from our travels around Africa. Give us a follow if you haven’t already.

Autumn was marked with an office clean up, Pack-for-a-Purpose drops and we donated several old computers to The Wellness Centre Trust and other items to the SPCA.

The office clean-up; Angie collects food items for the disadvantaged; Jaco drops off our donation for Pack-for-a-Purpose.

Suddenly, it was July when we held our mid-year AGM and our team-build saw us solving crime scene investigations at The Chairman in Durban. Our theme for the year, ‘Our Story’ was brought to life by Jill who showed a stunning video of the stories we help to tell through our clients.

We held our AGM in July; Nicol enjoys the pizza at our team build; the winning detectives at our CSI team challenge.

On a sad note, we said goodbye to Jen who headed back to Zambia.

Halloween was celebrated with gusto as always with the Empangeni crew beating Durban in the costume stakes, and snacks. Take a look at the photos below!

Halloween is always fun!

As the year came to close, we held a Masterchef Potjie Competition where teams competed to cook the best potjie at the Krantzkloof Conference Centre. It turns out we have some talented chefs and Frikken Chicken was declared the winning potjie. Following lunch, we wrapped up with every department presenting their achievements in video format.

It’s been an incredible year with so many new additions both in the team and product features. We are looking forward to a very exciting 2019!

Pay with Pesapal

/in , ,

How often do you use your credit card to pay? Most people use their card to pay for almost all transactions, however, many remote locations to do have access to card machines.

Pesapal, is a mobile point of pay system which started in Kenya and today operates in Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

ResRequest has recently partnered with Pesapal to allow ResRequest properties the opportunity to process credit card payments through this gateway, regardless of their location or the type of credit card. Pesapal accepts mobile money (M-Pesa, Tigo Pesa, Airtel Money) and Visa and MasterCard, American Express debit and credit cards and has the the ability to process payments in USD as well 15 other African currencies including the Kenya Shilling (KES)  and the South African Rand (ZAR). Pesapal also lowers the cost of collecting money for businesses by offering an easily accessible, reliable and cost effective way of collecting money via mobile money or debit and credit cards and remitting directly to their banks accounts.

ResRequest properties’ using the Pesapal integration will now be able to offer international and local guests credit card payment option and save them the hassle of having to carry local currency.

Additionally, Pesapal also has a mobile point-of-sale system, Sabi, which will allow businesses to process payments onsite in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.

For more info on how to use payment gateways, visit our Support site.

Navigating ResRequest like a pro

/in , ,

 

Are you a wizard on ResRequest? How many tricks do you know?

Many users are not always aware of all our handy features and top tips so we’ve highlighted a few of our snazzy features from frequently asked questions and noted some helpful hints from our support consultants.

Here are some of our most popular features. Are you using them?

Tips

 

1. Ops Chart

Our Ops chart is by far the most customisable and useful report for lodges to help with all parts of your operations on the ground.

Examples where teams will benefit the most from using the Ops Chart report are:

  • Logistics and transfers

Display logistical arrangements such as arrival and departure times of flights and which guests require transfers each day. Run this report every Sunday for the week ahead to streamline your planning.

  • Housekeeping

View which rooms are occupied or available per day and reference the internal notes for guest preferences or special arrangements for the room and what times the guests will be arriving or departing.

  • Kitchen team and catering

Generate a report for the kitchen crew to calculate how many breakfasts, lunches and dinners are required that day/week and how many adults and children to cater for.

  • Front of house (view which guests have paid, along with pax, res notes etc.)

This is really useful for the meet & greet team to know exactly who they are expecting, what nationality the guests are and how many people are in the group. The report can be set up to include special memos, such as a guest’s birthday so that the team can create an extra special experience for them.

These are just a few examples and there are many more possibilities. Get in touch with our team to help customise the chart to your liking.

Working with the Ops Chart: Here’s a tip

If you’re not interested in viewing rooming and just want to know basic details about which guests are arriving, their names or what extras have been booked, then deselect your Accommodation Chart in the report filter section.

2. Rooming calendar

The Rooming calendar is your hub for Property Management as most of the lodge processes are governed from here.

Navigate to the Rooming calendar through Property > Rooming Calendar or even set the Rooming calendar as your landing page.

Unallocated bookings

The Rooming calendar lists ‘Unallocated Reservations’ in a table below the calendar. These are bookings that have not been allocated rooms. Bookings that have been allocated to rooms are displayed as coloured blocks in the calendar in the row of the allocated room. As soon as new bookings are made they will automatically appear in the ‘Unallocated’ list. Each booking has a ‘Res Details’ option where you are able to have a quick view of the Guests contact details and the Financial information of the booking.

Functions

To activate any of the functionality, the bookings (either allocated or unallocated) must be selected (highlighted in green), the buttons in the tab above the calendar then become active for use on the selected reservation.

Reports

Within the Rooming calendar there are multiple day reports you are able to pull to help with daily logistics and planning at the property.

  • Day Sheet – Here you can see the breakdown of the Pax Analysis, Reservation Summary, Rooming Plan, Request and Extras for a particular day. This report may be used to track transfers too.
  • PAX Report – Here you can see a breakdown of how many guests are arriving, departing or in-house on a specific day.
  • Extras Report – Here you can see all Extras booked for that day. This report may be used to track transfers.
  • Arrival Folios Report – This report lists all folios of guests arriving on the selected day.
  • Departure Folios Report – This report lists all folios of guests departing on the selected day.

But wait, there’s more…We have a new and improved rooming calendar coming soon, so watch this space!

3. ResNova on mobile

ResNova is our booking widget which enables you to embed your ResRequest availability and rates anywhere on your website. It offers two formats so you can show your information in a calendar matrix or a quick search…or both! You have the option of just showing availability, or enabling bookings, and even linking up to a payment gateway to enable payments during the booking process. All of this is seamlessly integrated to your ResRequest system.

Mobile compatibility for ResNova is also now here! Whether your customer uses a mobile or desktop, booking your hotel is now super easy. Your ResNova widget will automatically adjust to your user’s device! PayGate can be used as a payment gateway for ResNova bookings.

Tricks

 

Do you have your special ResRequest tricks that you use all the time or a few quick shortcuts that make you a master of ResRequest? We’ve asked our support consultants for their top handy hints. How many of them do you already use?

1. Filter for email addresses

Add *@* to your Guest History report email filter to “find all your guests with email addresses, great for mailing lists.


2. Hide the financials from a Reservation Summary document

You can do this by using the document show/hide options if you want to use the document as a voucher for guests/agents.

 

This is what your Res Summary will look like with the Financial set to hide:

3. Insert keywords

Add keywords such as “lodge”, “safari, “luxury accommodation” into the Keywords field, on the Internet Marketing tab of your system defaults (Admin > Setup > Defaults) to increase your footprint on online searches.

4. Save time when creating large group bookings

By using the “different config” option, in your itinerary creation popup. You can add multiple combinations to a single itinerary, all from a single popup screen.

5. Narrow your search for contacts by using an *.

Example: You want to search for an agent with “African” in the name. Go to Contacts > Find contact > in the organization field, type in: *African*. You will then see a list of all the results, showing “African” in the name.

If you can’t get enough of these helpful tips, we have some more in our quick tips and tricks blog. Remember if you are ever stuck or need a hand, head over to our Learn Online support site available and our functional support call centre crew are only a request away.

We hope that these tips will save you time and help you get the most out of your ResRequest system!

 

Your guests digital guide

/in , ,

Smartphone technology is advancing at an incredible pace and you can do more and more with your device. Travellers now use their mobiles to book flights, accommodation, and make travel plans.

HandiGo has further enhanced the travel experience by developing a new app to cater for the needs of guests when they  arrive at their destination.

Inspired by their founder’s increasing frustrations with language barriers that were inhibiting his hotel’s customer service, Pete Poolsawad decided to make a change. His vision was for a simple and effective way for hotels to engage with guests using the latest technology.

HandiGo, is a digital pocket concierge, catering to all a hotel’s services and facilities, all at guest’s fingertips anytime, anywhere. An internet connection and their mobile phone is all that a guest requires to use this this service.

What does the app offer?

Information and photos

Using HandiGo, guests can learn about nearby attractions or get information about game reserves without needing to carry around guidebooks to ask lodge staff, thus reducing the workload of the staff.

Menu highlights 

Guests can access in-house menus and order room service directly from their phone and lodges can gather information about their guests’ preferences.

Booking forms

Guests can book tours, activities and facilities instantly on the application (i.e. Room Service, Spa Reservations etc.) making it easy for guests to arrange and purchase services and also for lodges to upsell.

Live chat

Manage language barriers between guests and lodge staff with this feature that automatically translates conversations, where everyone can chat in their mother tongue.

Voice calls

The roaming costs of using the phone networks in foreign countries can be an unnecessary costly expense for tourists. HandiGo provides a free two-way calling tool for guests and staff to talk for free.

Broadcast notifications

Contact all guests directly or individually with promotions or urgent messages. You can even contact them in their own language.

Review scores

Pick and choose which guests you send review prompts to as they check out and link these reviews to your preferred hotel rating websites such as Tripadvisor.

As app downloads increase year-on-year and the digitalisation of all industries continues, lodges will have to join the trend to keep on top of their guests’ travel expectations and HandiGo is one way to do this.

If you’d like to trial this product, scan the QR code below to download the app then scan the code with the app for a demo.

HandiGo is offering ResRequest customers an exclusive promotional rate of $99 USD per month, before December 31st 2018.

Get in touch with Ben at HandiGo if you’d like to take up this offer and give it a go!

Top travel trends

/in , , ,

 

The hospitality industry has changed rapidly over the past few years, largely due to the increasing digitisation of all aspects of life. Let’s look at some of the trends these changes are bringing to the industry.

 

Data-driven

Data is all the information you can collect about a person or activity. Data analytics uses all this information to show trends, forecasts and build reports. Hotels and lodges are starting to collect this data on their guests, potential guests and the preferences of both so they can offer a tailored service and more personalised approach. For example, you can use data analytics to personalise your summer sales campaigns to target guests who like to travel in summer. This more personalised campaign is more likely to get a positive response.

 

Tech

Technology is driving the trends in most industries, and the hospitality one is no different. From apps on your phone to unlock your room door to choosing your own entertainment, lighting, meals and pillows from your phone! Hotel management is also shifting to cloud-based services and reducing the number of IT experts needed. Customer service has also gone online and allowing real-time feedback is far more important to management than hearing about complaints weeks after the guest has left. Collecting all the customer service feedback into a single space accessible by all staff is also part of tech’s influence on the industry.

 

Millennial

The millennial market (people aged between 18-34) is a fast-growing travel market. They are tech savvy, like personalised services and flexibility. Hotels and lodges that offer a seamless check-in using a mobile, or offer gourmet ‘Instagram’ meals and a fast wifi will be top of the list for most millenials!

 

Wellness

Health and wellness is another trend that is impacting multiple industries. Guests are increasingly more health-conscious and want to maintain a healthy lifestyle while travelling. Thus the need for gyms, in-room equipment, healthy food options and spas are becoming a standard requirement for many hotels and lodges.

 

Environment

The green trend is growing globally and more and more guests are aware of the negative environmental impact that travelling has and want to offset some of that where they can by choosing environmentally friendly places to stay. Hotels and lodges that recycle water, grow their own produce, use solar energy and energy efficient lighting are some of the features that guests are looking for.

 

Quirkiness

Standard, chain-type of hotels and lodges will find themselves behind the trend if they offer the same experience whichever location one visits. Guests like hotels and lodges to have quirky/unique touches such as themed bathrooms or roomed names. This can extend into the personalization discussed under data, such as providing custom music lists.  

 

These are just some of the emerging trends changing the hospitality industry. If you have experienced something new or interesting on your travels, comment below and let us know! You could be on to a new trend!

 

References

Bizcommunity

Site-minder

Millennial travel

/in , , ,

 

 

You’ve seen them. You’ve heard about them. You’ve read about them. A group of people, probably in their early twenties to mid thirties, all with a mobile phone in hand and busy trying to get the perfect photo or selfie. These people are probably what society would term millennials, people aged between 18 and 37, and they are becoming increasingly significant as the fastest growing travel market globally.

 

This new and expanding market is influencing the travel industry in many ways. Let’s explore some of these trends.

 

Apps

App downloads are on the rise and are a particularly popular choice for millennials when travelling to a new city. Apps such as Google Maps provide real-time guided navigation and is free to download.

 

Social media counts

Social media drives the millennial’s travel choices and is a large part of their experience while on holiday. Make sure your social media efforts reflect the strongest points of your destination, especially any special features of your property or your services, which will stand out to followers and their sphere of influence. Millennials like to express their identity through travel so unique experiences will draw their attention.

 

Specialised travel

Millennials also like travel experiences that cater to specific interests such as yoga or hiking. They want to be able to tailor their trips to their interests and create a personalised travel trip. Adventure travel is also growing in popularity for this reason. It offers a trip focused on a particular activity.

 

Online

Millennials are online for the majority of the day and the internet is their go-two option for researching, communication and purchasing. Millennials use the internet for booking flights and accommodation and the industry will need to move a lot of their services online.

 

Since Millennials are an ever-growing market it’s increasingly important for industries to cater for their preferences. Are you keeping up with the demands of the markets that you target? How do these trends affect your business and how you strategically market your product? We hope this article has helped provide some clarity on how you can do this.

Read more Forbes

 

Keeping your data safe

/in ,

On the 25th of May, The General Data Protection Regulation commonly known as the GDPR, came into play. This new legislation is designed to set for companies on standard for consumer rights on data. Companies will need to be able to show the systems they have put in place to protect consumer data and their privacy.

The legislature is quite broad when defining personal identification information which makes compliance a challenge. Companies will need the same level of protection for things like an individual’s IP address or cookie data as they do for name, address and emails.

How does ResRequest comply with the GDPR regulations?

We are reviewing our processes and putting checks in place to ensure that we are adhering to the new standards.

Our subscriber policy is not to data mine and we request consent to sign anyone up on our mailing list. Your email address and personal data you consent to provide us with is used only for contacting you with ResRequest business related information. ResRequest system users’ email addresses are added to our mailing lists during implementation and at the direction of the system administrator. We use these contact details to send you notifications from us on our system functionality. This information is important to ensure you get the most out of your ResRequest system to add value to your business. We hope you enjoy reading our newsletters and learning about the product you lease. 

If we have met with you or you have shown interest in using ResRequest, we may use your contact details to send you information about ResRequest that we feel will be beneficial to you.

We do not share your details with data collectors. Should you wish to no longer receive our communications, remember that you can unsubscribe at any time.

Our dedicated SAAS team constantly monitor our online platforms to ensure our security is always upgraded and detect breaches. Our server hosts are recognised service providers.

ResRequest does have third party platforms which are part of our business service, such as Guest Survey interfaces, Financial Accounts interfaces, connections to Online Travel Agents, Booking Engines, Point of sales systems, Telephone Systems, Payment Gateways and Business Analytics. These systems are dependent on accessing data from our customer’s system to process our customer’s operational needs and an NDA between you and the service provider is recommended.

To learn more, please read our updated our Privacy policy and Terms of use which can be found on our website.

Increase your online sales with Expedia Group

/in , , ,

Expedia Group is one of the world’s biggest travel platforms. In the first quarter of this year, Expedia Group has brought in 92 billion USD in gross bookings and secured over 300 million bed nights through its over 200 travel booking sites in 75 countries.

Properties using ResRequest can now connect directly to Expedia Group without a channel manager.  Having access to this online platform gives properties significant advantage, as online bookings are growing and Expedia Group is a leader in this field. Adding Expedia Group to our list of connection partners is part of our ongoing commitment to provide you with the best ways to grow your business through various sales channels. Connections to Expedia Group are facilitated through ResConnect, our API and controlled with user access permissions.

Expedia Group video

Key benefits of joining Expedia Group

  1. Gain global exposure – Promote your property on over 200 websites (Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Trivago, etc.) in more than 75 countries – generating over 675+ million monthly site visits, up 21% year on year.
  2. Increase low season bookings – Increase the appeal of your property and target new customers (including 69+ million loyalty members) during low season by participating in price promotions such as early booking discounts, last minute deals or discounts for longer stays.
  3. Attract travellers who book earlier and stay for longer – Our international and diverse customer base tends to stay longer, spend more, and book further in advance.

Get started

The connection process is simple.
Sign up with Expedia Group and an Expedia Group and ResRequest consultant will be in touch to get you set up.

Your rates and availability are distributed and updated on Expedia platforms, directly from ResRequest. Bookings made by Expedia Group are automatically highlighted in ResRequest for your central reservation team to review, along with an email. All you need to do is manage your profile information on Expedia Group – they’re really helpful and have a team to assist with these housekeeping items.

Cost for using this connection.
A once off ResRequest setup fee of approximately 1 hour is billed at our standard data set up rate. The Expedia Group sign up is free and commission is only charged from the first booking.

Track the success of the connection. 
As bookings are automatically linked to an Expedia Group agent and an Expedia Group source. Your marketing team can run their favourite report to track bed nights, yield, average length of stay and revenue filtered or grouped by the Expedia Group agent or source.

Customers have already started using the connection.
We have over 40 properties active with the ResRequest-Expedia Group connection. Join this growing number of customers and start selling your bed nights fast and easily!

For more info on all the online options available, see our Channel Management starter pack.

Sign up with Expedia Group

How to open CSV files with Excel by default

/in ,

ResRequest sends data as CSV files and these are best viewed in Excel so you probably want to set these files to open automatically in Excel. We’ll guide you through this simple set up to save you time!

 

CSV files are text documents where the data is separated by a delimiter, or a character used to specify the boundary between fields, such as comma. ResRequest will use a comma to define different fields of data in it’s system but this is difficult to read if you open it in a text editor and so displaying in columns such as Excel makes mapping this data easier to read.

 

Setting these files to open by default in Excel is simple – let’s get started.

 

How to set Excel as the default program on a PC

 

Click on Start in the Taskbar on your Windows desktop.

Choose Default Programs in the left menu.

Click ‘Associate a file type or protocol with a program’.

Scroll through the list of file types until you locate the CSV option, then click it once to highlight it in blue.

 

Click the ‘Change program’ button at the top of the window.

 

Click the Microsoft Excel option under ‘Recommended Programs’, then click the OK button.

 

From the list of ‘Recommended Programs’, choose Excel.

Any CSV file you click to open with now open in Excel automatically. If you don’t want to open it in Excel, right click on the file and choose ‘Open with’ to select a different program.

 

How to set Excel as the default program on Mac

Right click on the CSV file in your Downloads folder.

Choose ‘Get Info’

Under ‘Open With’ choose ‘Excel.

Click ‘Change all’ and confirm your decision.’

 

How to set Excel as the default program on Windows 10


Step One: (Windows Key + S) opens up windows search. Search for Control panel. Once it pops up in the search, select it.



Step Two: Select default programs.

Step Three: Select Associate a file type.



Step Four: Scroll down until you find CSV, once you have found the CSV file format on the left-hand side of your screen, you will need to make sure that Excel is selected. If not you, will need to select Excel from the list.

 

We hope that this will help you to easily open and read all your ResRequest attachment downloads, but please don’t hesitate to contact our Support Centre with any queries.