Overview
The Inventory Count Notification message notifies a booking source of the amount of inventory available at a specific hotel property. It allows the Property Management System and CRS to synchronize the number of inventory items available for sale between them.
When a new hotel is opened for the first time, the Inventory Notification message would be used to supply the reservation systems with descriptions of rooms in the hotel. The Inventory Count Notification is used to send base inventory levels by inventory code, (e.g., room type code) to establish the physical inventory count. An Inventory Notification should always precede an Inventory Count Notification to establish the existence of inventory codes in the reservation system.
The physical inventory is the basis by which availability is determined. However, additional calculations figure into assigning the inventory counts for availability. Availability is a commitment to sell a room at a specific rate or plan. Since the same rooms may be sold under different rate plans, a system may carry a discrete inventory or an inventory count in association with different rates. The superset of inventory may be greater than the physical count, with the actual number of rooms counted down when they are sold.
The Inventory Count Notification message can be used to communicate how many rooms are available to sell during a specific period to revenue management systems. A reservation system may choose not to synchronize with actual inventory numbers but rather with a threshold. Properties and booking sources need to agree on common thresholds, whether they are derived from virtual or real inventory, in addition to a way to accommodate overbooking.
Supported Operations
The PMS uses this message to update the CRS for property level inventory changes. (Sample 1)
The message has room type data.
The message has no rate plan data.
Business Rules
This message is only sent from the PMS to the CRS.
The InvTypeCode needs to exist in the CRS.
OTA_HotelInvCountNotifRQ Elements & Attributes
Element | @Attribute | Num | Description/Contents | Origin | Value |
OTA_HotelInvCountNotifRQ | 1 | Root element of the message. |
|
@EchoToken | 0..1 |
| Unique number for every transaction. Must be returned as part of the response to this message |
@TimeStamp | 1 | Time of the transaction. | Time the message was assembled |
@Version | 1 | Version is a mandatory attribute in OTA; therefore, it must remain Mandatory in HTNG to be able to use the same message. | 1.000 |
OTA_HotelInvBlockNotifRQ Sample Group Add Message
OTA_HotelInvBlockNotifRQ Sample Cancel Block Message