Introduction
A group that eats with you often sleeps with you too. A school camp, a family weekend, a company outing on the park: the stay is handled in Booking Experts, the catering in Catermonkey. With the integration, both go into one enquiry.
Visitors of your widget pick their arrival and departure dates and the size of their party, see which accommodation the park has free and add it to their enquiry, together with the catering. When they send the enquiry, the units are held in Booking Experts and you see them in Catermonkey on the order.
What you need: a Booking Experts account with the parks you want to offer, and a Catermonkey widget. The stay is settled with the park; the price of the stay does not appear on your quote or invoice.
Step 1: Connect Booking Experts
The connection is made from inside Booking Experts, not from Catermonkey. Make sure you are logged in to Catermonkey in the same browser before you start.
In Catermonkey, go to Settings → Links & Integrations and find the Booking Experts card
Click Connect Booking Experts. Booking Experts opens in a new tab
Log in to Booking Experts and open the App Store
Choose the Catermonkey app and click Install. Pick the organisation and the parks you are installing the app for
Booking Experts sends you back to the Links & Integrations page in Catermonkey automatically
The Booking Experts card now shows Linked, with the name of your organisation and, under Connected parks, the parks you installed the app for.
Did you land back on the page with a message that you need to log in first? Then you were not logged in to Catermonkey in that browser. Log in and install the app again from Booking Experts.
Step 2: Turn on accommodation in your widget
Go to Website widgets and open the widget you want to offer accommodation in
Expand the Booking Experts accommodation card. It only appears once Booking Experts is connected
Tick Show accommodation in this widget
Under Park, choose the park whose availability to show, or leave All connected parks to search every park
Do you have several parks and want a widget per park? Create a widget per park and pick the matching park in each one.
Step 3: Add the accommodation step
In the same widget, click Add accommodation step. Place it first if you can: visitors then choose their stay before the catering
Fill in the Title, for instance "Your stay"
Optionally add an Intro text for this step, for instance to explain how choosing works
Set the Default number of nights. The step opens with that many nights; visitors change it themselves
Decide whether Visitors must pick at least one unit. Turn it off when some of your guests have already booked their stay elsewhere: they then see a hint that they can skip the step
What your visitor sees
In the accommodation step the visitor picks an Arrival and Departure. After Check availability, the accommodation the park has free for those dates appears, with a photo, a description, the maximum number of people, how many units are left and the from-price for the chosen number of nights. With Add the visitor puts a unit in Your stay. The same unit can be added more than once: a school camp that needs four chalets adds the same chalet four times.
For each unit added, the visitor builds the party that will sleep in it with plus and minus, and can give it a name, for instance "Class 3B". The age groups come from Booking Experts, so they are exactly the ones your park uses: adults, children, teenagers, babies, seniors and pets, for instance. The price per unit is calculated for exactly that occupancy. At the bottom is Stay total, marked as settled with the park.
The visitor then continues with the catering steps and the contact form, as in every widget.
What happens after sending
When the enquiry is sent, Catermonkey creates one booking in Booking Experts holding every chosen unit as a separate reservation. The booking carries the Catermonkey order number and the details of the person enquiring, so in Booking Experts you can see straight away which catering enquiry the stay belongs to.
The units are held, not confirmed. The park confirms the stay in Booking Experts, as with any other booking.
In Catermonkey the order shows a Booking Experts card with the booking number and, per unit, the dates, the party, the price and the state: Held, Option, Confirmed, Cancelled or Failed. Open in Booking Experts takes you to the booking in Booking Experts. Refresh fetches the current state after the park has changed something.
Frequently asked questions
How long is a unit held?
That is set on the sales channel in Booking Experts: the validity of a temporary booking. By default it is short, often an hour. Set that validity in Booking Experts to a number of days, so an enquiry that arrives on Friday evening is still held on Monday. Ask your Booking Experts contact to set this on the channel of the Catermonkey app.
Who confirms the stay?
The park, in Booking Experts. Use Open in Booking Experts from the order to go straight to the booking. Catermonkey then shows the state Confirmed once you click Refresh.
Is the stay on my quote or invoice?
No. The stay is settled with the park, in Booking Experts. In Catermonkey the stay is shown on the order for your information, and only the catering goes on your quote and invoice.
What if Booking Experts refuses a unit?
The catering enquiry always comes in. A unit that could not be held, for instance because it had just been taken, gets the state Failed in the Booking Experts card, with the reason. Contact the person enquiring in that case.
Can a visitor skip the stay?
Yes, when you turn off Visitors must pick at least one unit on the step. The visitor then sees a hint that they can skip the step, for instance because the stay is already booked.
Which price does the visitor see?
The price Booking Experts calculates for that unit, those dates and that occupancy, including whatever the park includes in that price. Catermonkey adds nothing and deducts nothing.
I have several parks. Can I make a widget per park?
Yes. In each widget, choose the matching park under Park. A widget set to All connected parks shows the availability of all your parks together.
How do I disconnect Booking Experts?
Click Disconnect Booking Experts on the Booking Experts card. The accommodation step stays in your widgets but no longer shows availability. To reconnect, install the app again from Booking Experts, as in step 1.