The new Integrated Online Hotels Reservation System (iOHRS) developed by NIC, Himachal Pradesh is a standard solution to make the best use of Internet for providing improved services to tourists of Himachal Pradesh. The iOHRS has become an important catalyst to increase in business of the Himachal Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation.
Every year, tourists from all over the world visit Himachal Pradesh. Tourism plays an important role in the economic growth of the State. Himachal Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation (HPTDC), which provides quality tourism infrastructure to the State, runs a chain of 57 Hotels, number of restaurants and facilities for adventure sports. The Corporation has also its own fleet of luxury buses.
HPTDC has been leveraging upon the benefits of Internet for room reservations of its hotels for the past 14 years with the use of a web-based Hotels Reservation System developed by NIC, HP. To maximize its potential to reach customers using all possible channels, including popular online travel portals and to take advantage of the evolved Industry Standards, it was decided to develop an Integrated Online Hotels Reservation System (iOHRS) afresh along with a mobile App for easy access of tourism related information.
“The new Integrated Online Hotels Reservation System has enabled HPTDC to extend its reach to the prospective customers/ tourists visiting the State by tapping all probable mediums, which has increased the business of the Corporation. The analytical reports/charts have helped us to offer better options to tourists and take informed decisions. It’s a complete Tourism solution by NIC Himachal!” MOHAN CHAUHAN, IAS Managing Director, HPTDC
IOHRS SOFTWARE The Integrated OHRS is a web-based application which provides online availability status of accommodations and instant online reservation facility to Tourists through the HPTDC website, major travel portals and Mobile Application. iOHRS facilitates online payments, cancellations, immediate confirmation of bookings through SMS/e-mail, enabling/disabling payment gateways, customizable cancellation policy, discount /special offer, easy check- in at HPTDC hotels etc.
The HPTDC Mobile App (available on Google Play Store) provides all information related to HPTDC, as available at http://hptdc.nic.in in offline mode. The App covers tourist places, hotels, adventure sports, conference facilities, roadmap of Himachal, photo gallery, contact information of booking offices, option for booking Hotels and Buses. Information related to HPTDC hotels is available, including photos, room numbers, tariff and availability. Internet is required only for fetching room availability data and booking information. The system’s simple and easy interface enables HPTDC officials to extract booking information quickly. The special feature called ‘Take Me There’ takes user to the selected hotel/place based on mobile GPS feature and Google Maps/Map My India Apps in Online/Offline modes.
KEY FEATURES • Availability status, instant direct reservation, cancellation, blocking of accommodation • Immediate confirmation of bookings/cancellations using SMS & eMail messages • Quick refund against cancellation • Integrated with multiple Payment Gateways • Integrated with all popular travel portals such as Cleartrip, Yatra, Travelguru and goIbibo for real-time confirmed online booking through their portals • Modules to manage Master Data such as popular destinations, hotels, type of accommodations, category/ period-wise room tariff, promotional offers, application of promotional offers and user/role management • Summary and detailed business reports such as room/nights booked, period-wise business comparison, hotel/user-wise business, user-wise booking and analytical graphical charts for hotels, booking offices and its management • Automatic real-time two way inventory sync with travel portals through channel partner (Axis Rooms) using WCF services
TECHNOLOGY Operating System: Windows Technology Stack: ASP.NET 4.5 web-forms, WCF, CSS3, fusion Charts, SQL Server Reporting Services Database: MS SQL Server 2012
The application has been hosted at the NIC Cloud of Delhi, which is designed to manage steady traffic, thoroughly tested and audited for cyber security. iOHRS helps in enhancing business and revenue of the Corporation. This software product can be replicated and extended for usage by similar State tourism departments.
The Integrated OHRS has been awarded the Skoch Order-of-Merit in 2015 and has been shortlisted for the National e-Gov Awards 2015.