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OPERA Alternate Distribution System (ADS) Interface
The Opera Alternate Distribution System (ADS) Interface, featuring Expedia® Direct Connect, is a full-featured, virtual application, that empowers the hotel industry to expose and sell their inventory through Expedia®, one of the world’s largest online sources of availability and bookings.
The Opera ADS-Expedia® Direct Connection allows consumers to utilize Expedia’s® hotel search capability and book directly into the Opera hotel – simply referring back to the Expedia®-originated reservation number when checking- in.
Through the direct connection with Expedia®, Opera hotels can bypass expensive switch-booking service fees and virtually eliminate the manually intensive fax-based booking process, allowing them to minimize costs and maximize profitability. A direct connection also instantly shares inventory availability and rate updates with Expedia®.
The Opera ADS Interface runs on a Windows® platform and is scalable to meet the needs of any size property or property chain. It is configurable to a property's specific requirements, making it easy to use and enabling the property to obtain fast, accurate, and up-to-the-minute information.
Opera Channel Management (OCM) gives a property chain total control of the inventory sold through Opera ADS, and offers a wide range of benefits, including rate and restriction updates, and seamless connectivity to the Opera Property Management System (PMS) or Opera Reservation System (ORS) databases.
The Opera ADS Interface was developed around the Oracle® relational database management system for speed, reliability, functionality, and ease of use. And, the rate room information is setup and stored in a single database, so managing the inventory sold through the Web channel becomes a much smaller task.
With inherent functionality targeted to the existing and future scope of the various electronic distribution channels (EDC's) that Opera can connect to, the Opera ADS Interface is the hotel industry's only obvious choice.
Below are several features that explain how the ADS- Expedia® connection extends and enables the possibilities of Opera’s single-image inventory and “one stop” hotel distribution.
Bookings and cancellations are electronically delivered from the ADS and instantly reflected in Opera. Electronic communication eliminates the need to send booking notifications by way of facsimile, which maximizes efficiency and accuracy.
Web users gain access to a hotel's availability through uploaded information from the partner hotels. This uploaded information is sent on an as needed basis to the ADS in virtual real-time, keeping both the Hotel and ADS databases in synch.
Opera ADS offers the ability to sell inventory in business blocks or free sell, and also allows a user to override restrictions. In addition, a user can sell the last room available.
The Opera ADS Interface is designed to run on a Microsoft server. After the application services are installed, basic configuration is needed to indicate location of log files as well as the Opera database connects string and application login parameters.
A direct connection to an ADS system has an immediate impact on the service fees collected by third party intermediaries, like a switch. The connection is over a secure network using HTTPS to post transactions.
If the connectivity between an ADS the hotel is interrupted at the moment of confirming a reservation, the Opera ADS Interface has the capability to ensure that bookings are not duplicated. The interface is also able to recognize if a restriction or rate update message has not successfully reached the ADS. Once a rate update or restriction update message is successfully received and processed by the ADS, any errors that are generated are sent back to the Opera hotel for employee review.
One result of the immediate restriction and rate updates from Opera to an ADS is business continuity. Even if the connection is severed between and ADS and an Opera hotel, Web users are still able to view availability and book through the ADS. Reservations made when the connection is down are ultimately delivered to the Opera hotel once connectivity is restored.
Opera ADS incorporates logging capability that allows users to track transactions and error messages.
The monitoring capability included in the Opera ADS Interface allows users to monitor and observe the response time of a request. A user can monitor the response time for a particular request or a range of requests.
The following concepts and procedures are associated with the Opera Alternate Distribution System (ADS) Interface:
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