Booking Engine URL Parameters

Modified on Thu, 29 Sep, 2022 at 5:07 PM

By the end of this training article you will:

Understand what the parameters do and what the basic principles are
Know parameters for the Rooms Engine
Know parameters for the Dining Engine
Know Parameters for the Spa Day Engine

What are booking engine parameters

Booking engine URL parameters allow you to create dynamic URL's which will take guests to specific rate plans, dates, and promotions without them having to fill in the field on the booking engine.

This can be used as a link in a marketing email, on your website promotion pages or to create a booking widget bar on your website similar to the one seen here: https://www.stokebynayland.com/ where the guest selects certain information directly on your website, and then when they are passed to the booking engine it will have already selected these choices.

Your booking engine URL will always have the same base, with parameters being added on to the end.

For example, your base URL would be https://*HOTELNAME*.cloud-reservations.net/BookHotel

You would put a ? after the BookHotel followed by the first parameter, and then a & followed by the second parameter. Below you will see examples for each engine so you can understand this better.

Rooms Engine Parameters

Below is a list of the parameters with a brief description of each one. After the = you would normally put the data. ie, adults=2, or rateID=1234.

Parameter	Description	URL addition
Adults	Automatically populates the adult's field	&adults=
Children	Automatically populates the 'children' field	&children=
Arrival	Automatically select the arrival date. Must be used in conjunction with a number of nights. The date format used is DD/MM/YYYY	&arrival=
Nights	The number of nights. Must be used in conjunction with Arrival	&nights=
Rate Plan	Used for linking directly to a specific rate plan only. The Rate ID can be found in Cloud Reservations where the rate plans are set up.	&rateID=
Room Type	Used to link directly to a specific room type. The Room Type ID can be found in Cloud Reservations under Reservations > Rooms > Room Types	&typeID=
Month	Allows you to jump the calendar to a specific month. For example, if you have a Christmas package on your website you may wish the booking engine calendar to jump directly to December. Format is MM	&month=
Year	As above, it allows you to jump to a different year as well. Format is YYYY	&year=
Promo	If you are using the promo code functionality in Cloud Reservations then you use this addition to link and apply the promo directly to the booking.	&promo=
Hide Code	If you are using the hidden rate functionality on the cloud, then you use this to link to the rate plan.	&hidecode=
View	You are able to set whether a guest sees View by Rate or View by room on the second page of the booking engine. 1 is view by room, 2 is view by rate.	&view=

You are able to layer up these parameters to form very specific URLs.

Let's say you have a month of love valentine package you want to start selling, for a specific room type. You would pull them together like this, substituting the data after the = sign with the correct data from your system.

https://*HOTELNAME*.cloud-reservations.net/BookHotel?RateID=1234&typeID=4321&Month=2&year=2023

Or you may have a specific Christmas package which arrives on 24/12 and departs on 27/12

https://*HOTELNAME*.cloud-reservations.net/BookHotel?RateID=9876&arrival=24/12/2022&nights=3

In this way, you are able to create unlimited custom direct links for your booking engine.

Dining Booking Engine

Parameter	Description	URL Addition
Service ID	Link to a specific service on your engine	&serviceID=
Date	The date the guest wishes to book	&date=
Party Size	To populate the number of people the booking is for	&adults=

Spa Day Booking

Parameter	Description	URL Addition
Adults	To populate the number of people the booking is for	&adults=
Spa Day	To direct link to a specific spa day	spaDayID=