Owner setup, part 3: rooms, buildings and rates

This is part 3 of 7 of the Xenia owner setup guide: 1. Your account · 2. Hotel details · 3. Rooms and rates · 4. Roles and staff · 5. Payments and security · 6. First booking and going live · 7. What to do next.

Xenia cannot take a booking until it knows what you sell. That means two checklist steps: Create your room types and Add your rooms. Open Rooms from the menu.

Add your room types

A room type is a kind of room you sell, such as Standard, Deluxe or Executive suite. Every room belongs to one type, and types make reports and rate plans easy later. A brand new hotel has no rooms, so the page invites you to start with a room type.

1. Choose Start with a room type (or Add room type).

2. Type the name, for example Standard.

3. Choose Add type.

4. Repeat for each type you sell.

You can Rename or Delete a type later.

Add your rooms

Now add the rooms themselves. Choose Add room and fill in three boxes:

• Room number: exactly what is on the door, for example 101.

• Room type: choose one of the types you just made.

• Rate per night (naira): what you charge for one night before VAT. You can change it at any time.

Choose Add room again for the next room. In the demo hotel we added three Standard rooms at ₦45,000, two Deluxe rooms at ₦65,000 and one Executive suite at ₦120,000. The list shows each room with its type, whether it is vacant and its nightly rate.

Each room also has Edit (to change its number or type), Change rate, Out of service (to take it off sale for repairs) and Remove. Changing a rate never changes bookings that already exist; they keep the price they were made at.

Buildings and areas (optional)

If your hotel has more than one block, or you want each room to say where it is, open Buildings and areas. Choose Add building, give it a name and a number or code, and save. If you will use door locks, use the same codes your locks use. A hotel with one block can skip this entirely.

Rate plans (optional)

Open Rates to make prices move automatically. A rate plan changes a room's own rate by a percentage. You can charge more at weekends, add a December season, discount long stays or create a promo code. Choose New rate plan, pick the kind of plan, name it, say which room types it applies to, enter the change (20 means 20% more, -10 means 10% less) and choose the days.

The Rate calendar tab shows what every room costs on every day. Any plan that lowers prices raises an alert to the Owner, so a hidden discount cannot go unnoticed.

Next: Part 4: roles and staff.