Finding more effective available dates (Advanced search limitations overhauled)

Advanced search does not have enough options to be functional. More flexibility is needed in finding availability, even if it does not match exactly with the dates filled in. This would be very beneficial in two situations:

Standard hotels
Say eg you search for 5 days in Venice and just the last day is not available for a certain property . . . no results for that property will be shown! Even if a day earlier was also free and you could have made your stay if you were willing to move! Pity! Better if the property would show up, but,of course with a note that the found period is close but not exact. The client can then decide to go for the available dates or not, possibly leading to more potential bookings and a better website.

Assets with fixed checkin dates and or minimum stay (complex tariff)
Assets might have fixed check-in dates and or minimum stay, which can be perfectly configured in complex tariff. However, if you do so, it is very hard to find these properties as you will need to know the exact checkin/out dates forehand. Just a day off and . . . no search results.



I believe a very decend solution could be to give the option of specifying flexibility. For now I propose two ideas:

At the backend of advanced search you could end two more parameters:

Label:Accept shorter availability Input: yes or no (Defines if shorter periods should be displayed in the results)
Label: Accept period shift by Input: 1,2,3,4,5 etc (days) (Defines how many days earlier/later will be accepted)

Of course if the results for the search are shown, it would be necessary to show also the actual days in which available. So that clicking would bring you to that asset for the actual bookable period and . . . you can decide if that is acceptable for you.

Another type of search module could be made
You could think of besides the "Advanced search Module" to create a "Flexible search Module", showing only one date field, a field for the amount of days and a field that indicates how flexible you are (how many days earlier/later Solidres should be search). This would add great functionality to Solidres by making it possible to use also for Hotels only accepting bookings for weekends, Seasonal offers, bungalow parks, cruiseships etc (Airline companies often do something similar when you search for a flight you can tick, flexible dates)

Hope the story was clear, let me know if you need more input.

i totally agree. i would users support to make more revenue and less missed oportunities.

Hi
This is exactly what we need to! thumbs up for this

We agree. The date search excludes too many results.
Say a property is set with weekly bookings & all the rooms are available.
If the customer searches 1 week + 1 day, no search result whereas 1 week might be sold.
If the customer searches 1 week + 6 days, no search result whereas 2 weeks might be sold.
Say check-in is limited to Saturday. The customer searches 3 weeks starting from Friday. He can shift his stay to the next day, but he does not know it is possible because the date search says : no room available. 3 weeks could be sold.
For all these case, missed opportunities could be turned into bookings thanks to a "flexible dates" feature.
It could be adjustable or not in the front-end (to x days) & set by the admin (with x max days).

First, a light version could be available for qualifying tariffs that are included within the date search, even though they do not match exactly.
It could probably be developed more easily and quickly but it would already be much better than no result.

We believe this feature worth the development work. It would make the availability search and the booking process much more user-friendly and efficient.

Totally agree! +1 To this feature requests