dr1travel - Our Booking Engine

Robert

Robert

Stay Frosty!
Jan 2, 1999
20,574
341
83
dr1.com
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!
 
M

mike l

Silver
Sep 4, 2007
3,157
466
0
Robert said:
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!
Click to expand...

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.
 
A

Adrian Bye

Bronze
Jul 7, 2002
2,077
138
0
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
 
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bigbird

Gold
May 1, 2005
7,375
163
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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.
 
M

mike l

Silver
Sep 4, 2007
3,157
466
0
bigbird said:
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.
Click to expand...

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!
 
Robert

Robert

Stay Frosty!
Jan 2, 1999
20,574
341
83
dr1.com
mike l said:
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.
Click to expand...

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

Robert

Stay Frosty!
Jan 2, 1999
20,574
341
83
dr1.com
bigbird said:
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.
Click to expand...

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

Robert

Stay Frosty!
Jan 2, 1999
20,574
341
83
dr1.com
adrianb said:
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
Click to expand...

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!
 
R

RacerX

Banned
Nov 22, 2009
3,390
376
0
No info on Santiago or La Vega? Thats a hindrance. What do you need? Input from owners? Feedback from guests?
 
G

granca

Bronze
Aug 20, 2007
1,418
48
0
87
What are your criteria for naming etc hotels? I for example go several times a year to Consuelo just north of S Pedro de M. I know two hotels there, one is useless it is near a church which has a mad priest who insists on full volume loudspeaker of what he thinks is religious and uplifting music from 5 am every day. The other isn?t too bad, no hot water of course, but the beds are comfortable ,there are soap and towells in the bathroom and the ventilator fans work. Mind you beware of noise on Public holidays, I think it doubles as a Caba?a.
 
Robert

Robert

Stay Frosty!
Jan 2, 1999
20,574
341
83
dr1.com
granca said:
What are your criteria for naming etc hotels?
Click to expand...

We name them based on what they are called :)

If you mean listing a particular hotel, then that depends on various criteria.

To start with, they need to have at least an email address and internet connection to check reservations.
 
A

Asher

New member
Mar 12, 2010
4
0
0
I am boking through this DR1travel engine a hotel in las terrenas for march 31 - april 2nd. the deposit that they are asking for is a % of total. What guarantee is there that the room will be reserved since the entire amount of booking isn't asked. Also do i get any confirmation from the hotel that the room is booked?
 
Robert

Robert

Stay Frosty!
Jan 2, 1999
20,574
341
83
dr1.com
Asher said:
I am boking through this DR1travel engine a hotel in las terrenas for march 31 - april 2nd. the deposit that they are asking for is a % of total. What guarantee is there that the room will be reserved since the entire amount of booking isn't asked. Also do i get any confirmation from the hotel that the room is booked?
Click to expand...

Your credit card isn't charged until the room is confirmed by the hotel.

This how the system works.

1) You send a reservation and credit card info to secure server.
2) Hotel confirms your reservation. You are emailed a confirmation.
3) Your credit card is charged a % to secure the reservation/room.
4) You pay the remainder of the balance to the hotel according to their payment terms.
5) You come to the DR and have a great time!

If you have any questions, let me know.
 
Robert

Robert

Stay Frosty!
Jan 2, 1999
20,574
341
83
dr1.com
newuser said:
When looking at the descriptions of the hotels, what do the User Rating and Popularity numbers mean and where are these numbers derived from?
Click to expand...

Popularity: A combination of the page views and reviews viewed by visitors. A hotel that is looked at 20x and has 4 reviews has a higher
popularity rating than one looked at 15x with 2 reviews.

User Rating: An Average of the ratings posted in all reviews
for that particular hotel.

Reviews: How many reviews posted on that particular hotel.
 
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