What are they?
This article will talk about two very powerful and delicate restrictions: the Ota Limit and the Availability Modifier, which allow you to change the availability of a product day by day, rate by rate.
These advanced tools are not mandatory, so you can also choose not to use them and avoid their complexity.
However, we developed them by listening to your requests on the forum, and many of you started using them as soon as they were available.
Ota Limit and Availability Modifier can be set massively from Sytar or also from Tabla:
☞ Docs: ZaK - Tabla
☞ Docs: ZaK - Sytar
1. Availability Modifier
With the Availability Modifier, you can increase or decrease your room categories' actual availability on a selected rate. This allows you to receive intentional overbooking or to limit your online availability in general, both on OTAs and on your site, for a specific rate.
The value that you set in this field will then:
- increase (if positive) the availability value
-
decrease (if negative) the availability value
! NOTE: The value set as Availability Modifier does not change after receiving reservations. Only the real availability value changes. We'll see this in the example below.
Example
For QUAD room type, the real availability is 4 now:
In the "Standard" rate, I set -1 as availability modifier:
So 4 - 1 = 3. This means that, with the modifier applied, my availability will no longer be 4, but 3.
NB: This small calculation must be done mentally, the number 4 will not change automatically.
Now I receive a reservation, so my real availability from 4 becomes 3:
At this point, with the modifier applied, my availability will be 3 - 1 = 2. And so on.
Availability modifier and channels
Please note that the Availability Modifier only works with channels connected on ZaK. If you have some channels also connected in WooDoo, the modifier will not be applied.
Besides, in ZaK some channels have availability at rate level (specifically, Hrs and HotelBeds) and some at room level (all other channels). This changes the application of the availability modifier:
- rate level: in this case each rate has its own value, so the modifier has to be set for each rate. You can also set a different modifier in every rate.
- room level: in this case, if I set a different modifier for each rate, the one that dominates is the last one I set.
2. OTA Limit
The OTA Limit is used to limit sales on OTAs in order to optimize direct sales from your own site.
This is a restriction that you can use if you connected one or more channels in the Channel Manager and allows you to select a maximum availability for each product to be sold at the selected rate. In the channels in which you use that rate, no more units can be sold than those specified.
! NOTE: The value set as Ota Limit does not change after receiving reservations. Only the real availability value changes. We'll see this in the example below.
Example
For my QUAD room type, the real availability is 3 now:
But I only want to sell 2 on OTAs. I want to keep the other one for the direct sale. So in the "Standard" rate I set 2 as Ota Limit:
This means that with the Ota Limit applied, my availability for OTAs will be 2 and not 3.
Now I receive a reservation from an OTA, so my real availability will change from 3 to 2. I will also see 1 in the reservations box (the one showing the number of reservations coming from OTAs):
Ota limit and channels
The OTA Limit can be set for each rate and you can enter a different value for each one.
Also, unlike the modifier, the OTA Limit works with both ZaK and WooDoo channels, if you enabled the specific option. In the OPTIONS section of the WooDoo channel, you just need to set YES on "Apply OTA Limit".
How can ZaK send different availability for your rates?
We'll explain exactly what happens with an example.
On our Ota X we use the rates RATE1 and RATE2.
Let's say we have a room with availability 100 on a certain date.
On RATE1 we set Ota Limit 4. On RATE2 we set Ota Limit 6. In this case (assuming that no reservations have been received yet from the OTA), ZaK will send availability 4 for both rates RATE1 and RATE2, so it takes the minimum value.
But why 4 if in RATE2 the Ota Limit set was 6? Let's see what happens when we receive the first reservation.
If a reservation comes in, the Ota availability decreases. So on RATE1 we should have 3 and on RATE2 5.
As in the previous case, ZaK takes the minimum value. So it will send availability 3 for both RATE1 and RATE2.
And so on as we receive more reservations. Until finally the Ota Limit of RATE1 is exhausted.
Now we have 4 OTA reservations, so RATE1 will be closed (because it had Ota Limit 4).
But, at this point, ZaK will send availability 2 for your room, keeping the other rate (RATE2) open, ready to receive two more reservations.