Overview

Areas form a significant component of the itineraries as they're used as itinerary stops. They delimit the area where customers can overnight, allowing them to choose from the available activities and accommodations.

They include several descriptive elements, as well as pictures, to give an overview of the route of the tour.

Areas must be created in the Inventory before they can be used in templates and products to be referenced to the exact geographical location and displayed correctly on the map.

Explaining the Usage of Areas

00:00: In this video we will cover how you can use and create areas and their descriptions in TripBuilder. 00:06: On your Inventory page, Click on "Package Builder". 00:10: You will see 2 related options: Areas and Areas descriptions. 00:15: Let's start by Areas. Click on "Areas". 00:19: You will see a list of all existing areas in your TripBuilder Instance. 00:24: Even if you haven't created any areas before, you will have access to a list of over 32 thousand areas from our database. 00:32: In this list you have the short name of the area, it's full name, the city of this area, country, timezone, the rating from 1 to 5 and the source. 00:43: clicking on any short or full name link, it will open a new window with the details of this area. 00:49: In this window you have more information about this area, like the ID, the Source of this Area - which is Nezasa, timezone and the default name presented in the frontend. 01:00: Moving down, you have the rating, full and short name, and additionally the Alias name of the Area. 01:07: On Metropolitan Area, the IATA code for the metropolitan area can be added (if available/existing). If this code is added, when conducting a flight search, it'll be used instead of the airport IATA codes defined in the Nearby airports field. 01:24: In here, you have the commercial relevant nearby airports to this area. 01:29: On Hotel and Activity search radius, you can define a radius from center of this area where activities and accommodations are searched. 01:37: Finally, on Location, you can see the actual location, in the map, of this Area. 01:44: Moving to the other tab in Areas, click on Translate. 01:48: In here, you can translate the short and full name of your area, to the available languages you have in the frontend. 01:55: Let's see the Area descriptions now. On Package Builder, click on Areas Descriptions. 02:01: Similar to Areas, the Areas description page also present the full Area name, the Source, Status, Country and Rating. 02:10: You can see that we have fewer areas descriptions than actual areas. This is related to our Database. Some created areas with ratings between 1 and 3 do not have descriptions, only the actual Area. 02:24: Clicking on any title of an Area Description, you will be redirected to the details page of that description. 02:31: On the Description tab, you will see the Area field. This field connects this Area Description to an Area. 02:38: Below you have a key sentence, short description and long description, that will be visible in the frontend. 02:45: On the Pictures tab, you will see the pictures associated with this area. 02:50: On the translate tab, you can see the translations for the key sentence, and short/long description available for each translated language in your frontend. 03:00: As you can see, you cannot edit Areas descriptions, since they belong to a shared database. 03:06: If an Area, or Description, don't fit your needs - or does not exist, you can create your own. To see how to create areas and areas descriptions, check our next video about the topic. For now, let's see how this areas are used. 03:22: But what is the purpose of Areas and Areas Descriptions? 03:26: This areas are the itinerary stops where your Inventory Products, Modules and Templates are localized, when you're creating them. They delimit the area where customers can overnight, perform activities or any other components. 03:40: On Discovery Detail, this is an example of an Area: Zurich. 03:45: And below, you have the short area description, of the Area Zurich. 03:50: Expanding the "Read More" button, you have the short and long description of the Area, alongside the pictures and the pinned map location. 03:58: On the Planner, the area is also visible. 04:01: Areas are also used in Discovery and Planner to select Start and End Location of the trips, and add more stops on the Route Builder. 04:09: If you start filling a location, or airport, all the fetched results come from the Areas database. 04:16: The image comes from the Area Description associated with the Area selected as well. 04:21: In the Route Builder, users can add more stops, using again the database of areas. Click on "Add Stop". 04:29: As before, all the fetched results come from created or existing areas in your TripBuilder. 04:35: When looking at the map, in the Route Builder, you will see some red pins. 04:40: This red pins are existing areas in your Tripbuilder. 04:44: Clicking on them will open a pop-up, that allows you to add that area to the itinerary you're building. 04:50: You can also add ad-hoc areas in Route Builder. This area will not be save in your TripBuilder, and can only be used for this itinerary. 04:59: Please be aware that this feature needs to be enabled in the Settings, by a TripBuilder Admin user. Check our Knowledge base article about it. 05:08: To do so, double click on any location of your interest in the map. 05:13: A new popup will open, that allows you to give a name to this stop, and add it to the Route Builder. 05:19: Finally, in Inventory Products, modules and Templates, this Areas used to define the locations, start and end, or stops. 05:28: Thank you for watching. Don't forget to check our additional video about creating Areas and Descriptions.

Creating Areas

00:00: This guide will walk you through the process of creating your own areas and area descriptions in TripBuilder. We already covered the already existing areas, and what they're used to in Tripbuilder. Make sure you watch that video before. 00:14: To create Areas and the corresponding description, go to Package Builder, and then click on "Areas". 00:20: Click on the "Create New Area" button. 00:23: On location, start typing the location. Can be an address, street, location, anything. TripBuilder uses Google Maps to autocomplete your information. 00:35: Click on the "Advanced Information" button, to open this modal. 00:39: You can edit the postal code and the city, and also the country. 00:43: On the map, you can drag and drop the pin to the exact location you need, to create your area. 00:49: When done, click on "Create" 00:52: Now, you can finish creating your area. 00:55: Starting with rating, from 1 to 5. This rating will help display this Area higher in maps and listings. We recommend using 5 for capitals, and 4 for other main cities. 01:07: You can edit the full name that is displayed in the frontend. 01:11: And also the short and Alias name. 01:14: On metropolitan area, you can define a IATA code, if existing. This will replace the nearby airports list for flights search. 01:24: Nearby airports will already be prefilled from our database. with the main airports near the location you selected. Make sure that only commercially relevant airports are present. 01:35: On Hotel and Activity search radius, you can define a radius, in kilometers, from your pinned location in the map from which TripBuilder should search for available accommodations and activities. If nothing is filled, the default is 30 kilometers. 01:50: When done, click on "Save". 01:53: Your Area is now created, but it doesn't have any pictures or descriptions. Let's do that. 02:00: Go to Package Builder, and Click on the "Area Descriptions" tab option. 02:05: Click on the "Create Area Description" button. 02:08: On the area field, start typing the name of your recently created area. Tripbuilder will autocomplete based on the existing, matching areas. 02:18: Then, click on Next. 02:20: Give your area description a good, attractive Key Sentence. This will be displayed in the frontend, on Discovery, Planner and travel documentation. 02:30: Do the same for the short description. 02:33: Long description can be used to detail your stop. This will be visible on the frontend as well, but only when the user selects to see more information. 02:42: When done, Click on "Save". 02:45: Click on the "Pictures" tab to add some pictures to your Area Description. Remember that you need to have your pictures already uploaded on the picture Library. 02:54: Click on the "+" button. 02:56: And navigate your picture library until you find the right pictures. 03:00: On Translate, you can translate the textual information of your Area Description. 03:05: For each text field, you can translate it to all the available languages of your frontend. 03:11: When done, click on "Save". 03:14: To make this Area description visible, you need to publish it first. Open the action menu. 03:21: And click on "Publish". Your new, custom Area is now available to be used. 03:26: As a final note, all the Areas and Descriptions you create in TripBuilder, are identified in the list as "Custom" on the Source. 03:34: "This guide covered the steps to create custom areas and area descriptions in TripBuilder. Don't forget to check our knowledge base articles about the subject.

Where are areas used? 

• Within a template, as area descriptions:
  • to offer a specific area as a stop in Template Management.
  • to create an area description for a stop in a template and to display that specific description on Discovery Details, Planner, and Travel Documentation.

• Within a product, as a stop indication for activities:
  • to pull the exact start/end location of activities.
  • to add additional areas as indicators of the overall activity.

• Within a product, as a radius for accommodation and activity search: 
  • to define the radius of a stop where accommodation and activities can be searched (accommodations outside of the area's radius are not displayed on the Planner).

Steps to Create Areas

1. Go to Inventory. 

2. Click on Package Builder.

3. Click on Areas.

4. Click the button Create New Area on the right-hand side.

5. Enter the desired location and choose the correct suggestion from the dropdown menu.

6. Click Advanced Information to see the exact location of the pin on the map.

7. If the location is set correctly, and you want to create a custom area, click the Create button.

How do you adjust an Area?

After creating an Area, a new window opens automatically, showing the details of the newly created area. 

Click Advanced Information for further information on the location, including a map where geo-coordinates can be defined by interacting with the map pin.

An area can also be chosen from the overview to adjust details later.

The most common adjustments are:

• adjusting the Short Name to be displayed as desired on the Discovery, Planner, and Travel Documentation 
• adding or adjusting the kilometres, that is, Radius, to get hotels and activities within that proximity
• adjusting the Location point of the area to optimise the hotel and activity search radius 

It's possible to adjust other options as well:

Integrations

Many data model entities managed in TripBuilder support external references. Areas are one example. External references represent an identifier stored in TripBuilder from an external system.

Each area has a single external reference accessible via API or by an Inventory User in the Integrations tab. Particularly for areas, the external reference indicates the data source used in the automatic area creation in TripBuilder (e.g. Wikivoyage) and the internal ID at that platform (e.g. 40481).

Translations

Click the Translate tab to manage the translations for the editable textual fields of an Area, namely Short Name, Full Name, and Alias Names. The number of languages displayed for translation depends on which have been configured to present user content on TripBuilder.

Click the Save button after concluding all changes to translations.