juggling rooms

[mascamps.com]

I see by the dates of the last replies to the various topics that we're all pretty busy.

In a minor lull in activity, it struck me that there must be an easier way of juggling overlapping reservations in the continual struggle to hit 100% occupancy. As it is, we seem to almost constantly need to move room allocations around over the following few weeks to create gaps for later reservations which, naturally, never fit into the existing gaps!

We originally thought that it would be a good idea to allocate rooms in a way that spread the load of room resetting but that's had the knockon effect of creating a heap of work when we get a chunky reservation and need to allocate a room for a week or more. Anyway, we're now thinking that it might be better to concentrate on filling each room continually thus making the free time on 'tothers that much longer (generating more work on the making beds side of things, of course, but making it a lot easier to say "yes, no problem" when we get a week or more enquiry).

So, short of adding another floor, have any of you guys found a way of reducing the amount of effort in doing this?

If not, any thoughts on strategies for doing it?

 

Arnold

 

[Coco]

When someone finds the answer please let us know  This problem is one of the main reasons that we aren't as full as the enquiries would lead me to believe we should be.  The times I have t turn people away because the only way to fit them in would be to make someone else move rooms halfway through their stay.  We have a couple coming next week, for example, and if I were to put them in one room for two nights, then move them for one night, then move them back for their last night I could have had both rooms full for the whole week (therefore 14 nights worth of bookings), as it is we have ten, but I don't think I could get away with all the moving about!!!  Unfortunately, without, as Arnold says, building a new floor, c'est la vie

[Quillan]

My booking system does all that for me with a few clicks of the old mouse.

[mascamps.com]

I was thinking about this after posting that and realised that in fact there are quite substantial theories as to how to go about it, stemming from computer science theory of storage. I think (not sure) that there is even "hotel" software to work it all out but I suspect that the prices would be too high for us small fry so we may have to stick to the manual method.

It's essentially the same process as your computer goes through when defragmenting your hard disc and going through the same process on our bookings for the next two weeks let me create a gap to fit in a 9 nighter. From distant memory (which I'll try to check out over the next week) there are two main theories as to how to do it: "best fit" and "first fit". If you're shooting for 100% occupancy, you will have to use "best fit" as "first fit" leaves un-necessary gaps. I suspect that in practice most people use "first fit" (ie put a new booking in the first available gap) as it's a lot simpler but it will considerably reduce your capacity to accept new reservations as you get closer to 100% (in fact, probably once you're much over 60% I suspect).

The deframenting process takes loads of computer power and really needs a couple of goes at it (hence if you defragment your disc two or three times in a row it still finds things to do). That's why this is taking up a considerable amount of everyones' time. I suspect that doing it manually would also take a couple of passes at it to get to the optimum (one reason that there's a lot of computer science theory behind it is that there isn't a nice simple algorithm).

Enough theory... how is it done?

The easiest way is to do it as the bookings come in but even then you will still need to do the "deframentation" process afterwards if you're getting close to 100% capacity (once you reach around 60% I suspect that you'd need to revisit your room allocations).

The first principle is that you should attempt to fill one room completely before starting on subsequent rooms. This will have the downside that you will have to make up that room more often than is strictly speaking requiried but that's unavoidable if you're aiming for 100%. Doing this will reduce the number of times that you need to rejig the room allocations.

Second principle is that you should aim to create long periods when rooms aren't being used (this is the "disc defragmenting" process). When doing this manually, I suspect that it would be best to do this as each booking comes in rather than wait 'til you have a scattering of empty days.

A third principle for the practicalities of a B&B is that you should 1) try to reduce the number of different types of room you have and 2) allocate the most appropriate room as far as possible as you go along (eg give a couple a double room rather than a family room).

Or in short remember that the theory is called "best fit" for a reason - it aims to produce the best possible fit of people to rooms and to leave as much free space as possible.

I suspect that second principle goes against the grain a bit for many people. It certainly looks pretty bad to have a room left empty on the booking sheet for weeks I know but the big gaps are what let you take the subsequent big bookings.

Anyway, how does that compare with what you guys have actually been doing?

 

 

Arnold

[Quillan]

I rather think your disk defrag theory is way off.

As for the cost of the software, well it's under 200€ and caters for multi room, multi tarrif and can be used for anything from a big hotel down through a camping site to Gites to B&B's and any combination of them all and it's network friendly and produces bills and letters of reservation in any language. So quite good value for money al for the price of a average 4 nights stay a year.

[mascamps.com]

I rather think your disk defrag theory is way off.

Nope, the "best fit" algorithm is the one that the big hotels use for their room allocation (there are numerous academic reports online about its use there and for things like operating rooms etc.) and it's the same theory behind the operation of the defrag utilities. I hadn't realised that it was possible to get software to do it at sensible prices for smallfry like ourselves.

Actually, I suspect that single feature of that software would be enough to justify the outlay. In Coco's example, it might have been able to get her a couple of extra nights already and we're not even half way into the summer yet. In my own case I was very close to turning down a 9 night booking the other day because my bookings were all over the place when I got the call (hence the advice to "defrag" the bookings as they come in).

Promise to try out that trial version you mailed me as soon as we get our head above water

 

 

Arnold

 

[Furry Knickers]

When I was a lad back in County Kildare, The kids from the poorest families were sent out to the juggling rooms to learn how to juggle. When they qualified as jugglers, they would then be sent to work in a Circus, and were expected to send their wages back to their parents. There was also the Lion taming rooms which nobody ever attended, so they closed them down due to lack of interest. I actually wanted to sign up for the Performing Seal rooms, but me Mammy would not let me. They are all closed down now, and they have built a model village on the site.