Overview
This guide is the second of a three-part series covering everything about groups, group booking pages, and managing bookings. Within each guide, you'll find a number of "Learn more" links which will dive deeper into individual features. If you're looking for a high-level overview of groups or managing your existing bookings, check out the other two guides below:
- Create and use a group to organize your trips explains the purpose of groups, how to create and edit your first group, and the basic functionality of groups and group trips
- Build a page for clients to book their group trip (this guide) provides a step-by-step walkthrough to build a landing page where your clients can self-register for your group
- Manage and track your group's bookings details all of the ways you can work with client bookings after they've booked via your group booking page
Contents
- Video tutorial
- Introduction
- Building your group booking page
- Manage your group booking page
Video tutorial
Introduction
A group booking page gives your clients a place to learn more about an upcoming group trip, choose a package and add-ons, fill out their forms, and submit their deposit. From there, we'll automatically create the trip and invoice, send you a notification, and handle other details that you can choose during the setup process.
Trips created via group booking pages can also be managed by our group booking management tools, allowing you to move clients between rooms, split and combine invoices, and more. When you're ready to manage your bookings, learn more here.
While this is the primary method you'll use to create trips in your group, there are less-automated options available as well. If you haven't checked out our guide on creating your first group, we recommend starting there.
When should you use a group booking page?
Almost every group you create in TravelJoy will have a group booking page. The page automates several tasks that you'd otherwise need to handle manually for every single room that's booked -- things like creating the trip, invoice, and payment schedule, sending forms, setting up automated reminder emails -- and unlocks some powerful tools like package inventory and managing roommates.
When shouldn't you use a group booking page?
There are a few scenarios where this might not be the best option:
- One person is paying for everyone in the group, so travelers won't be making a deposit
- You require a per-room deposit rather than a per-person deposit
- The accommodations and pricing are still TBD (you can try a group registration form here)
In these scenarios, you can still create trips manually within your group.
Building your group booking page
Choose a payment method (Direct or Supplier)
Much like invoices, group booking pages can collect authorizations (supplier) or direct payments (direct). You must choose which option to use when you create the page, and this cannot be changed later. For a refresher on these two options, click here.
Step 1: Name and Description
First, you'll give your group booking page a unique name in the box labeled "About this trip." This name is visible to both you and your clients, and helps if you end up with more than one booking page for a single group, such as "Cancun 2024" and "Cancun 2024 Early Bird."
Next, your description can contain just about anything you want, whether it's pictures of the destination, embedded videos of activities, richly-formatted itineraries, or all of the above!
The description area is a blank slate, and you can customize to your heart's content. If you haven't spent much time with our editor, you can learn the ropes in this guide.
Step 2: Pricing
Traveler limits
The minimum and maximum number of travelers per room for your group. This setting will apply to all packages for this group booking page, so if you're allowing a maximum of double occupancy in some rooms and triple occupancy in other rooms, you'll want to choose a maximum of three here.
Booking options
The dates your clients can book for your group. You have a few options here:
- Travelers share the same dates means everyone arrives and departs on the same days
- Travelers can book between two dates allows your clients to choose from a preselected date range with a minimum and maximum number of nights
- Travelers can book specific dates I set lets you select as many custom date range options as you'd like, and the client can choose from this list
Packages
Packages usually represent one room or cabin type in your group, so that your clients can choose from all available lodging options during booking. Packages have a number of options, from occupancy-based pricing and child pricing to inventory control. Learn more.
Extra options
Like packages, extra options are additional items, such as excursions, which can be booked by your clients. However, they are optional, and can be booked in multiple quantities. Each item can be customized in various ways. Learn more.
Group booking page settings
The gray box at the bottom of Step 2 contains the settings for this booking page. These settings vary based on the payment method selected earlier and other factors. Importantly, this is where you'll select the terms and conditions your clients will agree to during booking. Learn more.
Discount codes
You can create a discount code for direct group booking pages, which will allow your clients to save money on their remaining balance after paying their deposit. There are some limitations to be aware of. Learn more.
Step 3: Traveler Info
Primary and Additional Traveler forms
In order to learn more about your clients when they book, you'll select two forms from your list of prebuilt form templates:
- Form for Primary Traveler's Info, which collects information on the person booking the trip
- Form for Additional Traveler's Info, which collects information on all other travelers in this trip
You can choose from any of our built-in form templates or custom form templates you've built yourself, and you can choose the same form for both options. Our "Group booking registration (default)" form gives you a great default option, and can also be used as a starting point to build your own custom form.
Automatic task list import
The last option you'll find on Step 3 is "Task list to import." This feature allows you to select one of your prebuilt or custom task list templates, which will then automatically be imported to every new booking. These task list templates can include reminders for you and scheduled emails to your clients! Learn more.
Final step: Publish your group booking page
You're almost done! When you're ready to share your page with the world, click the "Publish" button at the top-right corner, and you'll receive a link to share with your clients on your website, social media, or anywhere you'd like.
Until you click "Publish" for the first time, your group booking page will be in "Draft" status. We automatically save changes as you make them, but nobody else can see them until you publish the page.
Managing your group booking page
You can find your group booking page later by opening the group and clicking on the "Group Files" tab. The page file will have a "B" on the cover, and you can click the three dots at the top-right corner of that file to see all of the page options.
Edit the page
Open the page from the Group Files tab of your group to make any changes. After making your changes, click the "Publish" button to save the page.
Note that updating your group booking page will only impact clients who book going forward. Previously-booked clients and invoices will not be affected.
Duplicate the page
Choose "duplicate" from the page file's dropdown menu, give the new page a name, choose the group where the duplicate will be created, and make sure the correct payment option is selected.
This can be useful if you've created a group booking page using the supplier option rather than the direct option, or vice versa. It can also help if you create an annual group with much of the same details from year to year.
Delete the page
A group booking page cannot be unpublished, hidden, or deleted once a client has booked. To prevent additional clients from booking on a particular page, open each package and set the "Available until" date to a date in the past, and then click "Publish."
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