Home → Arctic Reservations → Guest-Facing Site → Online Reservation Settings
30.7. Online Reservation Settings
Arctic provides you with the ability to control aspects of the booking process for your trips by using the "Online Reservations Settings". These settings are accessed by going to the "Settings" page under "Online Reservations" and clicking the "Pencil" icon next to "Settings" as shown here:
This will take you to the "Configure Settings" page. The "Configure" page is divided into two sections. The first section contain general settings that deal with controlling your preferred booking interface, the filter options you give your guests, hold settings, max reservation size as well as several settings dealing with whether to show full trips, show trip durations and show pricing.
Let's take a closer look at some of these settings so you know how they effect your guest-facing site. The first setting controls your "Booking Interface". You can choose "Automatically Select", "Trip Calendar", or "Trip List". We discuss this setting in more depth in the next section of this chapter.
The "Filter By" setting allows you to set whether you want to give guests the option to filter trip results and if so how you want them to be able to filter. You can choose by "Trip Types", "Trip Name or Online Name", "Business Groups", "Custom landing pages", or "None". This field controls the content and label of the "Filter" drop down menu, your guests see on the guest-facing site.
The "label" for the field will change based on your filter selection. If you choose "Trip Type" the label will say "Trip Type" as shown in the image above. If you choose "Trip Name or Online Name" or "Custom landing pages", the label will say "Type". The "Business Group" option will have the label "Location". The "Business Group" option is a great way to allow guests to filter if your business groups reflect the specific areas you operate in i.e. Idaho or California or if they reflect the specific rivers you run, i.e. Selway or Tuolomne. If your business groups are numerous and don't follow a specific location scheme it is not recommended to use this for your "filter" option. If you select "None" the "filter" option will be removed from your guest-facing site trip pages entirely.
The "Hold Spots For" setting allows you to set how long you want to hold spaces for guest once they have added them to their cart. The "Hold Spots For" setting is designed to ensure that guests have a chance to checkout without worrying their spaces may be unavailable before they complete the checkout process. The default "Hold Spots For" setting is 1 hour. However, depending on the number of offerings you have and how often guests book multiple activities at one time with you or how in demand your spaces are, you may want to increase or decrease the time. The lowest time increment you can set is 15 minutes.
Next is the "Maximum Reservation Size" setting. This is the maximum number of guests you want to be able to book in a single reservation online. For instance, some outfitters would prefer to take reservations for groups larger than 10 by phone because they offer additional services and pricing to large groups or have found large group reservations are more complex and so they prefer to handle creating them via the backend. When you set the "Maximum Reservation Size", Arctic will present groups that exceed the maximum with "Inquire" buttons rather than allowing them to reserve online. The default "Maximum Reservation Size" is 24.
The "Show Full Trips" setting allows you to tell Arctic whether you want guests to see full trips and be able to submit inquiries for those trips. This option is particularly useful if you will put guests on a waitlist for a specific trip date in case a reserved guest cancels and space opens up. You can read more about using inquiries as a waitlist in the support documentation. If you choose not to show full trips, then any trip that has reached the total number of openings you have set for the trip, will not be shown to guests online.
The next two settings control the information guests see about your trips when browsing the Trip Calendar or Trip List on your guest facing site. The "Show Duration" setting allows you to decide how duration is shown for your trips. On the Trip Calendar, duration is shown by spanning days. The "Show Pricing" setting if set to "Yes", will allow pricing to show in the information provided in the Trip List or by mousing over a trip option on the Trip Calendar. If "No" is selected pricing will not be shown until the guest selects their preferred date.
The second section of the "Configure Settings" page allows you to set the "Action Labels" for the buttons on the guest-facing site.
Arctic provides default labels for all of these instances but you can change them if you would prefer an alternate label. Below is a breakdown of when each label would be used.
Inquire: The inquire label is used for any trips you have told Arctic to show online but only accept inquiries. An alternative label could be "Request More Info".
Past Cutoff: The past cutoff label is seen once a trip has passed the online reservation cutoff you set up on the trip type for the time after which you did not want guests to be able to book a trip. However, this cut off doesn't mean there are no spaces left on the trip just that the booking is happening last minute. An alternative label option could be "Please Call".
Minimum Not Met: The minimum not met label is seen when a trip is not yet open because it has not met the online minimum you set on your trip type. An alternative label could be "Please Call".
Insufficient Openings: The insufficient openings label is seen when a trip doesn't have enough space to accommodate the number of guests, the guest would like to book. An alternative label could use the special {{remaining}} placeholder which will display the number of available spaces the trip has left. The label could be "{{remaining}} seat(s): Add to waitlist". This provides the guests with information as to why they cannot book a particular date and allows them to look for alternate results or if they really want that date to consider reducing the number of guests in their party.
Insufficient Group Openings: The insufficient group openings label is seen by guests when they try to book onto a group mode reservation that no longer has enough space to accommodate their reservation. An alternative label could be "Please Call".
Above Max Reservation Size: The above max reservation size label is seen when a guest is trying to reserve for a group larger than the maximum reservation size you set for online reservations in the settings detailed above. An alternative label could be "Please Call".
Reserve: The reserve label is seen for any trip that is bookable by a guest. Alternative labels could be "Book Now", "Book", or again using the {{remaining}} placeholder you could do "{{remaining}} Spots: Book Now!" This would provide guests with the number of openings available on the trip along with a call to action. This is particularly effective for high demand trips.
Note: Remember that Arctic's goal during the booking process is not tell a guest "No" when presenting the trip offerings you have. Even if you change the action label to "Please Call", if a guest clicks the button they will be taken to the built-in inquiry form Arctic uses. This page also displays your phone number if the guest would like to call but they will still be able to submit an inquiry instead.
Also Note: Long labels appear all on a single line, so the longer the label is the bigger your buttons will be. It is best to keep the labels as succinct as possible.
Once you have made the changes you desire on the "Configure Settings" page, click "Save Setting" to save your changes. Any changes made will take effect immediately so to see the changes you simply need to refresh any guest-facing site pages you have open.
Note: Online reservation settings are available per business group. This allows you to configure different settings for different business groups depending on the trip offerings in those groups. This is particularly helpful if you have multi-day trips and day trips for which you would want different "Max Reservation Sizes" or different "Action Labels". As long as your multi-day trips and your day trips are in different business groups, you can easily set the online reservation settings you would like for each group. To do so simply load the business group you want to modify the online reservation settings for and make the desired changes. The changes made to that business group will only effect the offerings within that business group.
If you have any questions regarding the online reservation settings and how they effect the online reservation process for your trips, please feel free to contact support and we will be happy to help.