New in SabeeApp: Shared Inventory feature

Hotel inventory management is an essential part of the hospitality industry, helping properties optimise occupancy. While every hotel operates differently, there’s a common practice they can leverage: shared inventory. 

The shared inventory feature allows hoteliers to sell the same physical space in multiple ways, catering to different guest needs and booking preferences. To help our partners take full control of their inventory management, SabeeApp is now introducing a shared inventory feature. In this article, we’ll explore its benefits and show you how it works.

A changing approach in hotel inventory management

Picture this: It's peak season, and your villa or apartment remains empty because you never considered selling it separately by individual rooms. Modern travellers want flexibility, and properties need an inventory strategy to keep up, and that means rethinking how space is sold. 

Hotel inventory management is an essential part of property management with lots of opportunities, and we're excited to introduce our new feature - Shared inventory - that will open new doors for you in optimising your distribution strategy.

What is Shared Inventory

Shared inventory is a common practice in today’s ever-changing market that maximises occupancy and revenue by selling the same physical space in multiple ways. For example, a villa can be rented as a whole or divided into individual rooms, and adjoining rooms can be sold separately or as a family suite. 

This level of flexibility enables hotels, hostels, and vacation rentals to attract a wider range of guests while making the most of their available space.
We can summarise the benefits associated with shared inventory as…

• Improving your distribution strategy and inventory management 
• Meeting your guests’ needs and reaching a wider audience
• Maximising revenue and occupancy especially during peak season

Please note! While shared inventory can increase revenue, it is also important to mention that it carries a risk of overbooking. We recommend implementing this strategy during low season first. 

Which reservations can be managed with SabeeApp’s Shared Inventory

With the Shared Inventory functionality, the following reservations can be managed in your SabeeApp account:  

• Manually registered reservations
• Reservations made via the Booking Engine
• Reservations received through the Connect API
• Availability synchronisation for Booking.com, Expedia and Airbnb*
  
  *In version 1, this feature covers only these three channels, with plans to include more in version 2

If you’re interested in using our new feature, you can check out the step-by-step guide on how to set up virtual rooms with shared inventory, and how to connect them to OTAs (Booking.com Expedia and Airbnb).

How does it work in SabeeApp

When the shared inventory feature is activated, and the room setup and linkage are finalised, the system will automatically handle this complexity for you. Here are the most important mechanisms about reservation handling while using shared inventory linkage:

• Changes in the Calendar view: When the shared inventory feature is activated, and the room setup and linkage are finalised, the system will automatically create blocks (or connecting blocks) in the virtual units corresponding to existing reservations in the linked physical rooms.
  
  
• Moving reservations between linked physical rooms: When a reservation allocated to a physical room is moved to another physical room (that is part of the same shared inventory linkage), the corresponding blocks in the virtual unit will automatically follow the change.
  
  
• Moving reservations to non-linked rooms: If a reservation allocated in a virtual room is moved to a physical room (that is not part of the shared inventory linkage), the corresponding blocks will be automatically deleted.
  
  
• Deleting or changing reservation status: If a reservation within a shared inventory linkage is deleted, cancelled, or marked as a no-show, the corresponding blocks will automatically be removed from all affected units.
  
  
• Splitting reservations: If a reservation in a virtual unit is split, the corresponding blocks in the linked physical rooms will also be split accordingly. With a physical room, it’s a bit different: the corresponding block in the virtual unit will remain intact until the split reservation is moved to a different unit. At that point, the corresponding block in the virtual unit will be split and adjusted to reflect the new allocation.
  
  
• Group reservations: For group reservations, when member bookings are allocated to physical units that are part of a shared inventory linkage, the corresponding block's comment will display all the member reservation IDs.
  
  

Ready to take advantage of shared inventory and optimise your room distribution?

The hospitality industry never stands still, and neither should your strategies. Hotel inventory management is about flexibility and maximising revenue. Properties that adapt for instance shared inventory, will be better positioned to meet changing guest expectations.

We at SabeeApp are committed to continuously improving our PMS system so hoteliers like you can take advantage of modern technology and features like shared inventory. If you’re interested, we’d love to talk to you! Our dedicated Account Management team would be happy to show you our new shared inventory functionality and talk about other solutions SabeeApp has.