Creating Tours
The following Article will take you though the process of creating a tour and also explaining all the available options that can be utilised to create your Day Excursions/Inclusive Tours
Preparation
Before creating tours it is strongly recommended that the following information has been set up in t3 :
- Pickup routes or interchanges.
- Travel insurance rates.
- Suppliers for accommodation, ferries and coach operators.
- Room and meal basis descriptions.
- Tour type, theme and analysis categories.
- Frequently offered tour option groups.
- Coach seating plan layouts.
The Create New Tours window, shown below, is opened from by clicking the Create button on the maintain toolbar
Creating new tours in t3 is a relatively straightforward process and is achieved by following the six simple steps outlined on the first tab.
- Select the creation method.
- Enter or alter tour settings.
- Enter or alter accommodation settings.
- Enter or alter option settings
- Add new categories, tour codes and departure dates.
- Check all details carefully then create the tours.
TIP: The suggested sequence by working through the forms on each tab, working from left to right. For ease, use the tab key to move between the input fields (shift + tab to reverse the tab order).
Creation Method
Tours are created using one of 2 methods:
- New Tour Style –all information has to be entered from scratch. This is the default method and is used to create a completely new tour style.
- Replicate Existing Tour –makes copies of an existing tour. Tour settings can be changed if necessary.
Tour Settings
Start by completing the basic tour information on the Tour Settings tab as shown below.
The exact same form can be recalled from within a tour at any time to make changes.
Additional help is available in the program by hovering the mouse pointer over a field to show a tool tip.
The tour properties are as follows:
Tour Information
| Destination | Tour title or holiday destination. |
| Nights | Overall duration in nights (0 for day excursions) – note that this can be different from the accommodation duration for tours with overnight travel. |
| Tour Type | Can be set to Inclusive Tour or Excursion. Excursions don't have accommodation so passenger selling prices are defined in the Day Excursion Fares group on this tab. |
| Seat Plan | Select seat plan style – use NONE for open selling without seats. (Seats can be allocated later as a separate process). |
| Seats | Seating capacity – automatically matches the seat plan style. |
| Country | Geographic boundary - British, European, or World Wide. |
| Reserved | Reduces
effective seats which can be sold. Note there is a separate feature for
blocking out individual seats. |
Route Selection
| Route Type | Configured only in create. Displays the routing methodology in use, either Interchange or point to point. |
| Outward - Primary | Select primary outward pickup route from the drop down list. |
| Outward - Secondary | Select secondary outward route (only applicable to interchange based routing). |
| Return - Primary | Select primary return pickup route from the drop down list. |
| Return - Secondary | Select secondary return route (only applicable to interchange based routing) |
Region Settings
| Resort | Destination resort (see resort maintenance for more details). |
Shared Resources
| Accommodation | Tours operating on the same dates can share accommodation resources. Use this field to define the reference of the tour this departure is to share with. The default is the tours own unique reference which is supplied on the Departure Dates tab. Click the selector provided to pick the required master tour. |
| Keep Own Price | Enables shared accommodation tours to be priced individually - this is useful where self-drive and coach tours share the same accommodation pool. Operates for basic prices only and not supplements. |
| Tour Options | Optional extras, for example theatre tickets, can be pooled in the same way as shared accommodation. Use this field to define the reference of the tour this departure is to share with. Click the selector provided to pick the required master tour. |
| Seatplan Master | Not available in create. Check to signify that this tour is operating as a master seat plan for other tours. |
| Master Tour | Not available in create. Use the provided selector to select a tour to operate as this tours master seat plan. The selected tour must be configured as a seatplan master (see previous settings). |
| Stop | Not available in create. Click to stop a tour from sharing a seat plan (only active when a tour is currently sharing a plan). |
Status Flags
| Accommodation Override | Check to override accommodation stock controls (allows the over selling of rooms). Use only where unlimited accommodation is available. |
| Seat Numbers Off | Check to switch off seat numbering. Passengers are still assigned seat numbers but these are not shown on confirmations, travel documents or tickets. |
| Off Sale | Check to declare the tour as withdrawn from sale. New bookings will not be allowed. |
| Tour In Build | Check to signify that the tour is newly created and not yet on sale. |
| Passport Required | Check to signify that a valid passport is required for this departure. |
| Issue Insurance Voucher | Check to signify that t3 should issue a voucher of a value determined by the selected insurance band. |
| Self Drive Tour | Check to signify that no coach element is required for this tour. |
| Trust Account Finalised | Check when a trust certificate has been printed. No further completion certificates will be printed for this tour to prevent double accounting of tour revenue. |
| Margin Scheme VAT | Check if tour is subject to Tour Operators Margin Scheme for VAT to split the revenue analysis on cash daybook reports. |
| Hitlist/Guaranteed To Operate | Check to denote the tour guaranteed to operate – Guaranteed tours have a special logo and appear in a highlighted colour in the tour finder. |
| Cruise Requirement | Check to signify that the departure includes a cruise element. |
| Private Group | Check to signify that the departure is for a private group. |
| Mystery Tour | Check to signify that the departure is classed as a mystery tour, certain areas of t3 and documentation will not disclose full details of accommodation. |
| Allow Agent Web Discount | Check to allow discount on agent WebRes bookings |
Travel Insurance
| Inclusive | Check if travel insurance is included in the basic tour price. |
| Band | Select the insurance band as defined in the Insurance Rate Table – see Insurance on the maintain Toolbar. |
| PPI Rate | Passenger Protection Insurance rate, rarely used but included for historical bookings. |
| (Commission) Band | Commission band allowable to agents for insurance sales – can be A, B or C and relates to the rates defined in the Agents setup. |
| (Commission) VAT | Check to add VAT to agents commission on insurance sales. |
Web Settings
| On Sale | Check to denote tour is eligible for sale with Webres. |
| Take Deposits | Check to allow deposit payments for internet bookings made before the balance due date. |
| Show Seat Picker | Check to allow web clients to select their own coach seats. |
| Own Insurance Information Required | Check to make completion of clients own insurance details compulsory where insurance is not taken. |
| Areas | Optional selling area grouping for use by Webres. See the Webres documentation for the use of this feature. |
| Status | Allows the adding of a custom tag line to be used instead of Book Now on WebRes. |
| Discount (Disc.) | Discount amount (units determined by the type setting below). |
| Type (Discount Type ) | Type of discount, used in conjunction with the above. |
| Promo Code (PC) | Click to display the following window and specify a WebRes promotional
code. |
Day Excursion Rates
| Adult/OAP/Child | Day excursion rates for adult, senior and child passengers. |
Agent Commission Rules
| Capped | Check to set the commission to a fixed amount as specified in the Cap £ field. |
| CAP £ | Specifies the commission value per passenger allowable where the Capped option is checked |
| Basic Price Band | Agent commission band applied on the basic tour selling price – can be A, B or C – see Agent Setup for details. |
| Basic Price VAT | Check to add VAT to commission on the basic tour price |
| Allow on Supplements | Check to allow agents commission on the tour accommodation supplements.
Leaving unchecked will show accommodation supplements as noncommissionable
items in the booking financial tab |
Other Settings
| Canx Scale | Scale of cancellation and charges to be used (see booking terms in the system settings section for more information). |
| Itinerary | Text based itinerary to be used, click the select button to choose form those already configured. |
| Deposit | Override for the default deposit amount as defined in selected booking terms scale (see cancellation scale above). |
| Due Days | Override for the default due date as defined in selected booking terms scale (see cancellation scale above). Please note that this is specified in days as opposed to weeks as per the booking terms scale. |
| Mail Category | Assign a mail category to the tour, each booking made will cause the selected mail category to be selected against the lead client. |
| Loyalty Points | Number of loyalty points issued when booking on the tour. Only applicable if the loyalty point system is enabled. |
| Travel Club Discount | Discount allowable for clients with current travel club membership. |
Once the tour settings have been entered and thoroughly checked, proceed to the Accommodation Tab.
Accommodation
The next step is to set up any required accommodation for an ‘Inclusive Tour’, this step can be skipped entirely for day excursions. Shown below is the Accommodation tab of the tour creation window.
The accommodation tab controls are as follows:
Centres
A tour can have up to NINE centres each with its own buying and selling rates, room definitions and stocks.
| Centre | This window shows all centres assigned for the tour. Clicking on a centre updates the Centre Details group to reflect the selected centre |
| Add Centre | Click to add another centre which will then appear in the Centre Window.
Details can then be edited in the Centre Details group and in the rooms
browser below |
Centre Details
| Account Ref | Click the V button and select the accommodation supplier from the list – these are added using the Suppliers button on the Maintain Toolbar. If default rooms have been configured for the hotel, you have the choice of using them - plus default room quantities if they are relevant. Alternatively you can keep the default room types or alternatively type in your own room styles, capacities and stocks. |
| Name | Centre Name – this is populated when a centre is selected from the suppliers list but adhoc descriptions can be typed in if required. To achieve greater integrity it is advisable to define and use properly set up accommodation suppliers |
| No. of Nights | Nights in the selected centre – note that this can differ from the tour duration where overnight travel is included. |
| Board Basis | Select the board basis from types defined in the Meal Basis Category Setup. |
| Adult Sell price | Basic selling price for an adult passenger – excludes room supplements. |
| OAP Concession | Basic selling price for a senior citizen– excludes room supplements. |
| Child Price | Basic selling price for a child passenger – excludes room supplements. |
| Express Table | Fare table used for Express Services – this has been overtaken by Tour Options and is included for compatibility with older data sets. |
| Rooming List Narrative | Hotel note – can be used to advise the hotel of arrival note and special
instructions. This note prints on rooming list reports |
Room Browser
The multi-coloured grid at the bottom of the Accommodation tab is used to enter the room details for the selected centre. Up to 8 room types can be defined with corresponding person capacities (beds) , room stocks and the adult, senior concession and child buying rates for the stay duration.
The control operates along the lines of an Excel Spreadsheet – the right/left/up/down cursor arrows can be used to navigate to the appropriate cell, where the value can be overtyped
TIP: When entering data, if you experience difficulties entering numbers, try clicking the INSERT key on your keyboard to toggle the data input mode.
Use the “Copy Down” feature to save repeating buy-rate data
| Centre | The Centre reference – these range from H1 to H9 and represent the 9 available centres per departure. The number is automatically inserted as new centres are added and should not normally be changed. |
| Room Type | The room type – ie., Single, Double, Twin, etc. A default set of rooms are automatically provided for each centre, but these can be modified if required. Note that this is a short code for accommodation types and there is a facility in Categories for providing longer descriptions for the Tour Finders and Rooming Lists reports. |
| Pax | Maximum numbers of persons for the room type – ie a TWIN holds 2 as does a DOUBLE. Don’t confuse this field with the number of physical beds or berths. |
| Stock | Quantity of rooms of this type available to the tour. Note that accommodation can be shared across a number of tours, in which case the stock would be the total number of rooms pooled between all the sharing tour codes. |
| Supp’t(Sell) | Selling supplement for the room type. This is normally used for single rooms supplements but can also be used for discounts for multi-bedded rooms, in which case a negative figure would be keyed in. |
| Adult (Buy) | Accommodation buy rate per adult – note that this is the rate for the full duration and is NOT the bed-night rate. |
| OAP(Buy) | Accommodation buy rate per senior concession – note that this is the rate for the full duration and is NOT the bed-night rate. |
| Child(Buy) | Accommodation buy rate per child – note that this is the rate for the full duration and is NOT the bed-night rate. |
| Add Room | Adds a blank row to the room browser. The centre number will be provided automatically but you will need to enter the room type, capacity, stocks and rates as detailed above. |
| Delete Room | Remove a room type from the browser. |
| Copy Costs | Copies the buying rates specified in the 1st row of the browser to the
remaining rows. You will be asked to confirm the action. Since the first row
normally contains the single supplement we recommend entering the most common
figures on the 1st row, copy down then amend any incorrect rows manually.
It’s still a time saving feature if used properly |
Once the accommodation has been entered and thoroughly checked, proceed to the Options Tab
Options
The next step is to specify any optional extras on the tour, if required, and to provide useful notes relating to the tour. These details are found on the Options Tab see below.
Adding Options
Clicking the Add button offers the dialog window shown below and offers the user the choice of creating a new option (yes) or selecting from the global options set up from the Options feature on the Maintain Toolbar (no).
Choosing NO opens the Global Options list, see below, which enables whole packs of options to be selected from those created earlier. This is good for selecting sets of cabin types tailored for a particular ferry route.
Use the Option
Category drop-down list to filter by option type or use the Option Pack list to
identify pre-created packs - select NONE to show all packs.
Click options to
select them – remember you can use the CTRL key + Click to select individual
options or alternatively click the first in a block, hold down the SHIFT key
and click on the last in the block to
select a whole blocks of options.
Once the required options have been selected, click the Add to Tour button to transfer them into the options tab for the new tour.
Options can now be edited to add prices, stocks etc for use in the new tours, exactly as if they had been added individually.
Amending Tours
To amend an entry in
the list, simply double-click it and you will be able to edit certain fields
including the tour start date.
Example: A series of Bruges/Ostend weekend departures
is to be created with a tour reference BRUGOST with the first departure on 14th
of February and running for 4 consecutive weeks. The tour codes have been
checked in the Tour Finder and the last one found is BRUGOST 8.
- Click on the Add button in the New Tour Dates group
- Set the Base Code to BRUGOST
- Set the Offset field to 9 – the number of the next required departure.
- Set the Start Date
- Set the Interval - the interval between departures - to 7 days
- Set the Number of Departures to Add field to 4
- Click the OK and the 4 new tour codes will be created.
Note: T3 does not allow re-use of live tour codes. The Base Code and
Offset field combination should not already exist for any tour on the current
data set. If you are replicating tours, T3 will suggest the next available tour
references in the tour series.
Categories
Categories are a vital tool when producing marketing extractions at a future time and should be set up with a great deal of thought. They are also an excellent aid for sales staff when searching for tour availability for a client – enabling them to quickly appraise what is available and, perhaps more importantly, to offer clients an alternative holiday if the first choice is not available.
The default naming convention for the two tour categories is Tour Type and Theme, although both can be re-titled if appropriate to your product range – an example is to use Genre for concert sales (see System Settings).
Select the required
categories and analysis group with the selectors shown below.
The controls and their
functions are as follows.
| Tour Type (Tour Cat 1) | The primary tour category. |
| Theme (Tour Cat 2) | The secondary tour category. |
| Analysis Code | This field is used to assign a tour analysis code which can be used for grouping and filtering certain reports. This is often used where multiple brands are sold on one dataset or tours are to be sub-divided into product groups such as Tours, Excursions, Private Groups etc. |
| Auto Reserve Coaches | Provided T3 can see a valid PH28 data set, this tick box will be checked automatically and the newly created tours will be created in the PH28 coach hire system. |
Final Check and Create
Up to this point, all tour details can be amended and it’s sound practice to revisit all the tabs, checking that the details have been added correctly. The Create button is now enabled and the text to the right confirms the tour title and the number of departures to be created.
Once it is determined that all details are correct, or as near as possible, then the create button can be clicked. This will cause t3 to generate the new departures, their routes, accommodation and any required options. A progress window will be displayed during this time and dialog will confirm when the process has finished.
If there are any
details which need changing on the tours which have just been created – for
example where the price varies over a series of departures – then proceed as
follows:
- Use the
Tour Finder to select the first tour.
- Click the
Tour Settings button to change settings defined on the Tour Settings tab of
Create – it’s the same form used in both places.
- Double-click
on the Accommodation Panel of the tour to change buying/selling prices or
accommodation stocks.
TIP:
Use the NEXT skipper buttons on the Tour Window Toolbar to skip to the next
tour in the sequence. There is
absolutely no need to return to the Tour Finder each time you want to change
tours.
Replicating Tours
If a tour already
exists, it can be rapidly cloned using the Replicate process. The create tabs
are populated with all the details of the host tour, and settings can be
checked and amended before the new tours are created.
Selecting Replicate
Existing Tour from the first tab of the create window opens up a simplified
tour finder, as shown below, simply search for the tour you wish to clone and
double-click on it in the list.
If a tour already exists, it can be rapidly cloned using the Replicate process. The create tabs are populated with all the details of the host tour, and settings can be checked and amended before the new tours are created.
Selecting Replicate Existing Tour from the first tab of the create window opens up a simplified tour finder, as shown below, simply search for the tour you wish to clone and double-click on it in the list.
Choosing a tour in
this manner will populate all the create tabs with the details of the selected
tour.
Since replication is
the preferred method of adding a second departure to a fully booked tour, it is
often the case that the new tour will share the accommodation stocks of the
host tour. If this is the case, click YES to the following dialog when it is
displayed.
Where the host tour is
being used as a template for new departure dates, then you must answer NO to
the dialog.
From this point you
can add new departure dates as above and the tours can be created in the
usual way.
If you have any other questions about the above, please do not hesitate to contact our support team, who will be happy to help.
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