Hostel Reservations - the challenge...

We (the Hostel in the Forest) have struggled with the business of reservation systems starting the day we began taking bookings. We have been in busines for 34 years, but have only had to deal with reservations over the past 5. We had membership program for tracking that but had to use an external system for reservations. We migrated this to Google Calendar last year but finally decided to get serious with a local development group and thought I would share this with others. We did not want the data being stored locally on the computer. Our heat/humidity/dust situation was not conducive with a great environment for a computer. We also wanted it to be browser-based as we use Open Source UBUNTU as our operating system. Being browser-based meant it would work with Windows, Macs, Linux - even mobile devices.

It became a very cooperative development strategy as the developers wanted out input, specifications and testing to make the product truly worthwhile for the wider hostel, campground and hotel industry. The product is called RESENGINE and is a hosted application, employing the AMAZON S3 Cloud. It is is easy to set-up with your local resources of rooms/beds/camping areas and manages membership as well. While we do not use credit cards for our business, it accommodates credit card billing and tracking. It has a calendar-based view and databases the guests for ease of data entry when they visit again. As a very busy Hostel, we have contributed heavily to the development of the complex issues of dormitory booking (by bed, by group etc) and single / double rooms as well as many other aspects of the service. We are delighted in its performance and ease of use and can suggest any hostel consider it as very viable solution to managing reservations. It is a hosted application and the monthly charges are very competitive. They offer a fully functional 30 day free trial and if you send me a personal email, I can obtain an extended trial access for you.

Having spent nearly a year in trying to refine an idea reservation system for our hostel, we are delighted to say that ResEngine meets all of our needs.