dr1travel - Our Booking Engine

Robert · #1 08-31-2009, 12:47 AM

Our goal is to encourage independent travel, by making every small & boutique hotel in the Dominican Republic accessible, bookable and available online. In addition to the hotels, we plan to add tours, flights, transport and vacation rentals.
All will be reviewable, with great photos and text etc

This will be the Dominican Republics one stop shop for independent travelers.

After months of development and testing, it's time for a "soft" opening.

Dominican Republic Small Hotels & Tours - Read Reviews & Book Online

We are still tweaking and adding stuff, but it's open for bookings

Go have a play and please post your feedback, good or bad in this thread.

Thanks!

mike l · #2 08-31-2009, 01:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert

Our goal is to encourage independent travel, by making every small & boutique hotel in the Dominican Republic accessible, bookable and available online. In addition to the hotels, we plan to add tours, flights, transport and vacation rentals.
All will be reviewable, with great photos and text etc

This will be the Dominican Republics one stop shop for independent travelers.

After months of development and testing, it's time for a "soft" opening.

Dominican Republic Small Hotels & Tours - Read Reviews & Book Online

We are still tweaking and adding stuff, but it's open for bookings

Go have a play and please post your feedback, good or bad in this thread.

Thanks!

This is great but I noticed when you enter the length of time you want to stay at each Hotel the nightly calculater needs to be adjusted for weekly or monthly results and perhaps seasonal rates as well.

For example, one of your current advertisers www.perladesosua.com has this on his site.

Adrian Bye · #3 08-31-2009, 01:53 AM

VERY nice job, congrats! This will end up being a nice business for you i am sure.

feedback:

1. process to check out is too many steps. maybe 3 pages max. check how hotels.com does it.
2. buttons the same color and style as amazon always add credibility
3. should be able to save credit cards
4. would be nice to be linked to dr1.com account and keep our cards on file.
5. don't charge a deposit, charge the full amount of the booking just like hotels.com does.

congrats guys, this is impressive work

bigbird · #4 08-31-2009, 02:12 AM

What is the advantage of booking with dr1travel? Why wouldn't someone just go directly to the hotel website to book or use one of the many already established hotel booking sites?

I've noticed a greater demand for people searching for moderately priced apartments than trying to book a hotel online.

mike l · #5 08-31-2009, 02:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigbird

What is the advantage of booking with dr1travel? Why wouldn't someone just go directly to the hotel website to book or use one of the many already established hotel booking sites?

I've noticed a greater demand for people searching for moderately priced apartments than trying to book a hotel online.

It would be great to go directly to a hotels website but travel sites don't allow that so they can collect and administor the commission.

It's all about search engine rankings and the DR1 is the most recognized for any travel here so now they get to expand on that!

bigbird · #6 08-31-2009, 03:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mike l

..........It's all about search engine rankings and the DR1 is the most recognized for any travel here so now they get to expand on that!

gotcha.............

Robert · #7 08-31-2009, 09:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mike l

This is great but I noticed when you enter the length of time you want to stay at each Hotel the nightly calculater needs to be adjusted for weekly or monthly results and perhaps seasonal rates as well.

For example, one of your current advertisers Perla de Sosua has this on his site.

The rates are daily and adjusted for seasons.

This is how many places set their rates, as the larger percentage of their stays are never more than one week.

We have some hotels with 2 seasons, others with 7.
Some charge more on the weekend, some charge per person.

Trying to build in every scenario is impossible, but it sure has been interesting the past few months learning how all these small hotels operate

Robert · #8 08-31-2009, 09:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigbird

What is the advantage of booking with dr1travel? Why wouldn't someone just go directly to the hotel website to book or use one of the many already established hotel booking sites?

I've noticed a greater demand for people searching for moderately priced apartments than trying to book a hotel online.

The problem is, many hotels are hard to book, or worse still, you can never find them online. Some don't respond to emails, some don't even have emails

We are trying to bring them under one roof and make it easy for people to book these hotels. This is a first step in taking away some of the stress for consumers.

The next steps will involve, tours, flights and the vacation rentals.

Robert · #9 08-31-2009, 09:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by adrianb

VERY nice job, congrats! This will end up being a nice business for you i am sure.

feedback:

1. process to check out is too many steps. maybe 3 pages max. check how hotels.com does it.
2. buttons the same color and style as amazon always add credibility
3. should be able to save credit cards
4. would be nice to be linked to dr1.com account and keep our cards on file.
5. don't charge a deposit, charge the full amount of the booking just like hotels.com does.

congrats guys, this is impressive work

1. I agree and we are working on that.

2. Buttons are flat right now and need to jump out a little more.
Not sure if they will be like Amazon buttons, but they will change.

3. We don't want to do that for security reasons, not right now anyway. Plus the PCI compliance is a lot tougher if your retaining users CC data.

4. A universal profile across all sites is something we are looking at and working on, no easy task. CC's see above.

5. That model comes with many more issues.
Especially in the areas of fraud, chargebacks and paying clients (hotels, tours etc)

In the US and Europe it's easy to pay clients back with direct deposit, cheque etc. Here it's a nightmare, especially in the market we are working in. Many of the smaller operators (Non-AI) are not set up for this and it would be a nightmare to administer.

Keep the feedback coming, I love it!