How to create a Transit Activity for Multi-Day Tours?

Learn how to create inventory Transit Activities within the cockpit of TripBuilder

1. Overview 

2. How to create inventory stop or transit activities?

a. Steps to create activities

b. Description Tab 

c. Add Segments 

d. Create Service or Room Categories

e. Adding Amenities

f. Adding Pictures

g. Additional Tabs

h. Publishing Activities

1. Overview 

Activities can be a fixed or exchangeable component of a tour. Each activity is loaded as a single product and has a specific pricing per season and location. In order to add inventory activities to modules or templates they have to be created previously in the inventory.

Within the inventory, we differentiate between two types of activities: Stop and Transit activities. Stop and Transit Activities are built up the same way, the only differences are the following:

2. How to create inventory transit activities?

In order to load activities, please make sure you have the following information available:

• A comprehensive description
• A few representative high-quality pictures
• The net-sales prices
• Duration, start and end times

a) Steps to create activities

• Go to Cockpit
• Click on Inventory
• Click on Products
• Click on Stop or Transit Activity depending on which kind of activity you want to create

• Click on the Create Activity button to open the following screen and enter the required information. 

• Choose an Activity Type  
  
  • Standard Activity or 
  • Occupancy-Based Activity 

• Add the Title of the Activity 
• Choose the contracted Currency 
  • Note: This is only possible while creating the accommodation. Once you click Save, the currency cannot be changed for this accommodation anymore.

• Add the Start and End Location
  • The start and end locations have to be chosen from the drop-down menu in order to be added properly. The search is pulled via Google. 
  • The pre-requisite is that the start and end location of a transfer should match the start and end location of the subsequent module and vice versa.
• Add Start Times for the activity 
  • The start time is required to correctly match all the components included before and after the activity. If the set start times should not be displayed to the user in Planner, tick the box Hide Times for Travelers 
  • Please also consider the Buffer Times.
• Add the Scheduling & Duration of the activity
  
  • Duration/day is calculated in 24 hours. (Activities starting at 8 am and ending at 10 am of the following day have to be added as 1 Day / 1 Overnight / 2 hrs.)
• Decide if this should be a multi-day tour with own rental car or not 
  • Tick the box: Requires Rental Car in the planner if the rental car should be calculated for the whole trip including the multi-day activity. 
• Click Save
  • After clicking Save, the draft of the activity will be created and you will be redirected to a new page. 

Please Note:  The activity will not be created and the information won't be stored unless you click on Save. Only after clicking Save the draft of the activity will be created. 

b) Description Tab

After the activity has been created you will be directed to the description tab. The basic information that you have added previously is now displayed here. The following additional settings can be applied: 

• Start Flexibility
  • Activities have a starting time and a duration that can be adjusted according to the flight information of the end customer.
  • However, certain days do not offer as many flights as others therefore the "Start Flexibility" will allow the system to find more flights whilst adding a certain amount of hours before and after the default time.

  • E.g. your Activity starts and ends at 11am

    • Adding 4 hrs to the "Start Flexibility" will allow the system to search for additionally fitting flights between 7am and 3pm
    • Adding 2 hrs to the "Start Flexibility" will allow the system to search for additionally fitting flights between 9am and 1pm
    • Not adding any hours to the "Start Flexibility" will only search for flights fitting to 11am

• Adding additional areas

  • If there are further areas of the activity which are relevant to be displayed on the Frontend, they can be added on the "Description" tab.
    Where and how they will be displayed in the Frontend can be taken up during your onboarding process.

• Display Settings
  • The "Show in Overview" option defines how your activity will be displayed on the Frontend. However, this option will be offered a 2nd time on the Module-Level.
  • In order to offer various possibilities on different Modules the option chosen on the Module will overwrite the default on the product.

c) Add Segments 

The description of an activity is added on the Segments tab. An activity can consist of one or various segments, depending on how detailed the tour should be displayed on the Frontend map.

• Click on Add Segment to add and edit a segment and enter the required information 
  • Be aware that depending on the selected segment type the information to be entered may differ from transfer, activities and overnight (accommodation). 
  • If you add an overnight segment the accommodation information can be added and made visual for the user in the Planner. 

• Each segment can have its individual locations and transfer types selected.
  • The activity type defines the type of pin that will be displayed (e.g. transfer, activity, overnight).

• Segments can have individual pictures assigned which will be displayed in the Travel Documentation
  • Pictures have to be added to the Picture Library beforehand.

• The info sections allows you to add important and/or additional information to your tour and can either be displayed before or after the segments on Explore. 

Display in Cockpit 

Display in Planner

d) Create Service or Room Categories

Different pricing rules apply for either group tours or standard activities. Details can be found here:

• Standard Activity Pricing 
• Occupancy Based Activity Pricing

e) Adding Amenities

Amenities are used to add extra services, such as meal options, guides, transfers, entrance tickets, etc., to an activity. Amenities can either be added as Single or Grouped amenities. 

To add amenities to your activity, go to the amenities Tab:

• Clicking on Add Amenity opens a window

  • Add the Name of the amenity 

  • Select the Type of the amenity 
  • Click OK to create the amenity 

After clicking OK, you will be directed to the detail page of the amenity.

• Add Details
  • The description of the amenity.
• Add a Picture
  • Pictures can be added to all amenities within an amenity group and will display on the Frontend.
  • Pictures need to be uploaded to the Picture Library before they can be assigned to a specific amenity.

• Inclusion Policy and Pricing Type
  • After creation, the inclusion policy is automatically set to Optional, by default not selected and the pricing type to Price per PAX. Both can be adjusted and have an impact on whether an amenity can be selected or deselected on the Frontend.
  • Please refer to the following table to see how the inclusion policy and pricing type are displayed on the Frontend.

Grouped Amenities

Grouped amenities are used for multiple options in one amenity, where only one option can be chosen. For example, two activities are offered on the same day, but only one of them can be chosen.

• Clicking on Add Amenity Group opens a window

  • Add the Name of the amenity group

  • Click OK

• The grouped amenity will be created and the following additional options are available:
  • A specific "Opt-Out Option" text. If nothing is inserted, the default says "Without" (see also the example of the Frontend display below)
  • A description of the amenity group (details)
  • Adding pictures

• After successfully having created a group, you are able to allocate a single amenity to a group via Move Amenity.
  
  

The following example illustrates how the grouped amenities are displayed in the Cockpit as well as on the Planner.

Cockpit Display

f) Adding Pictures

Move to the Pictures tab to be able to add pictures to your activity. The tab is directly linked with the picture library. 

• Click on the Picture Tab
• Click on the + to access the Picture Library 
• Select the pictures that you want to add to the accommodation and click on assign. 
• Click Save

g) Additional Tabs

Learn more about the use of the additional tabs in the following overview. 

h) Publishing Activities

Before an activity can be used in the Planner and added to a Module or Template, it must be published. The status of the activity is always displayed next to the defined activity name. 

Next to the SAVE button, on the top right, you will see an action button with three dots. 

• Click on the Button 

• Click on Express Publish to publish the activity 
  • The status of the activity will be set from draft mode to publish.