Configure accommodations for programs in residence, overnight guests, teachers, staff, and more!
This article applies to the full-featured Lodging Types and Rooms configuration option within Retreat Guru. An alternative self-guided approach is available for small-to-medium size centers with basic lodging requirements. Consult with your onboarding specialist or contact your friendly support guru to determine which approach best applies to your center.
Rooms
A room in Retreat Guru represents an actual space that we rent to a guest for stays of one or more nights.
A room may be one like most hotels feature, with four walls and an ensuite bath, or a room may be a suite that features two or more separate bedrooms. Unlike most hotels, at least pre-COVID, a room at our center might be shared by strangers.
A dormitory may feature 6 or more sets of bunk beds. We might consider the physical room where all 6 bunks are located as the room. Or, we may configure each bed as a room so that we can allow guests to choose an upper or lower bed. One dorm room may be designated for people who identify as female, another for males, and another may be coed. Yes, lots of flexibility!
A room may be a tent site or a parking space for a personal vehicle.
We may allocate certain rooms for non-public use like rooms reserved for resident staff, visiting teachers, volunteers, or property caretakers. We may even use virtual rooms to manage commuters who participate in our programs but stay off-property.
All of these use cases can be accommodated (pun intended) within Retreat Guru.
Lodging types
A lodging type (or room type) is how we sell a room, and an individual room may be sold in more than one way.
In the examples that follow, our one-bedroom cabins 101, 102, and 103 have one queen bed and two single beds, and an ensuite bath. Cabins 201, 202, and 203 each have 3 single beds and an ensuite bath. All rooms are nestled in the forest.
Hotel-style
With a hotel-style lodging type, one registration takes the whole room. For cabins 101, 102, and 103, the max capacity is 4 people - 2 in the queen bed and 1 in each of the single beds.
To describe this way of selling the rooms, we configure a hotel-style lodging type called Forest View Private w/ ensuite. For our sample center, this is the primary lodging type, the way that we prefer to sell the rooms.
The peak season rate is $200 per night. We priced this lodging type based upon double occupancy - the price is the same if 1 person or 2 people occupy the room. We will charge an additional $20 per night if a 3rd person stays in the room, and an additional $20 per night if a 4th person stays in the room. A family of 4 would pay $240 per night.
Shared-style
With a shared-style lodging type, strangers may occupy the same room. Even though this is shared accommodations, it's unlikely that we will put strangers in the same bed, so for cabins 101, 102, and 103, the max capacity is 3 people - 1 in the queen bed and 1 in each of the single beds.
We configure a shared-style lodging type called Forest View Shared w/ ensuite. For our sample center, this is the secondary lodging type, an alternative way that we will sell the rooms.
The peak season rate is $80 per night per person - if 3 people occupy the room during peak season, they each pay $80 per night.
What's covered in this article
Configure a lodging type
If you are configuring Lodging Types and Rooms for the first time, see the Retreat Guru Configuration Guide and consult with your onboarding specialist.
Go to Lodging > Add New.
Hotel-style
Following the introduction above, we configure a hotel-style lodging type called Forest View Private w/ ensuite.
At our sample center, the peak season is June 1st to mid-October. Lodging prices will increase next year. The seasonal pricing feature will automatically adjust lodging pricing based upon the stay dates specified in the registration.
If you use seasonal pricing, the best practice is to cover all dates in the desired range. In the example below, all dates between now and October 17, 2021, are covered by seasonal pricing ranges - no gaps.
Weekends tend to be the most popular choice for our guests - certain days represent more value. In our example, we charge an additional $10 per night for stays on a Friday or Saturday.
A few other settings are available but they do not apply to our sample.
The no rooms option might apply in other situations, like for a commuter lodging type. We may wish to charge a day-use fee for commuters or restrict the number of commuters that can register for a program.
The bookings summary exclude option relates to the Room Bookings Chart.
The admin only setting would restrict access to this lodging type to registrars or other members of your team assigned to an appropriate role. The most common use of this feature is for rooms allocated to teachers or staff - you want to manage the inventory but you don't want the public to be able to book the rooms.
Add a description to highlight the features of this lodging type. A snippet of this description will be shown under the featured lodging image on the registration form. The guest can click on More Details to read the full description.
Upload one or more images for this lodging type. The first image uploaded will be used as the feature image for the lodging type on the online registration form. Any additional images will be displayed when the guest clicks on More Details.
When we configure our individual rooms (covered later in this article) they will appear in the Room Inventory section for this Lodging Type.
The online registration form shown below includes the Forest View Private w/ ensuite lodging type. If multi-registration is enabled, the guest may choose the number of people that will occupy the room.
The guest may click on More Details + to see additional information and images.
Remember that the guest chooses a lodging type, not a specific room. Although Retreat Guru assigns a person to a room behind the scenes, to manage room inventory, the guest does not know which room they are assigned until you tell them, usually at check-in.
Shared-style
Following the introduction above, configure a shared-style lodging type called Forest View Shared w/ ensuite.
With seasonal pricing,
weekend price adjustment,
a description,
and images.
Notice that the description and images for the Forest View Shared w/ ensuite are the same as those for the Forest View Private w/ ensuite.
In our sample, these lodging types represent the two ways that Cabins 101, 102, and 103 may be sold - the same rooms, just a different way of selling.
Now it's time to configure the actual rooms.
View all lodging
Go to Lodging > All Lodging.
Configure a room
If you are configuring your Lodging Types and Rooms for the first time, see the Retreat Guru Configuration Guide and consult with your onboarding specialist.
Go to Rooms > Add New Room.
In our sample, our one-bedroom cabins 101, 102, and 103 have one queen bed and two single beds, and an ensuite bath. We prefer to sell these cabins as Forest View Private w/ ensuite. This preference is referred to as the Primary Lodging Type for these cabins.
Cabins 201, 202, and 203 each have 3 single beds. The primary lodging type for these cabins is Forest View Shared w/ ensuite.
If cabins 201, 202, and 203 are booked for certain dates, and cabin 101 is available, we'd like to offer cabin 101 to guests who want a shared room. We can do that by assigning cabin 101 to the Secondary Lodging Type of Forest View Shared w/ ensuite.
Here's how it works.
If all rooms with the Primary Lodging Type of Forest View Shared w/ ensuite are sold out (cabins 201, 202, 203), but a room with a Secondary Lodging Type of Forest View Shared w/ ensuite is available (cabin 101), Retreat Guru will book a person who requests shared accommodations in cabin 101 - automatically!
Room specifics
The Room Specifics, Room Beds, Room Bed Size, and Admin Note sections allow you to further describe this room. These are admin only sections, not displayed to the public.
Room bookings
See Future, Current, and Past bookings for this room.
Custom max capacity
In the Room Lodging Types section, you may configure the maximum capacity for a room. Settings made here will override any settings made for the lodging type, and will affect this room only. In most cases, you should use the lodging type settings and not the settings per room.
Custom gender assignment
In the Room Lodging Types section, you may configure the gender that can be assigned to this room. The default is smart gender auto-assignment which will use the gender identification of the first person registering for a shared room to restrict additional assignments to the same gender for that room.
For example, if a person who identifies as female selects Forest View Shared w/ ensuite as her lodging type during registration, and Retreat Guru assigns that person as the first in cabin 201 (3 single beds), only people who identify as female on the registration form will be assigned to fill the remaining 2 beds in cabin 201.
The other options available for this configuration are determined by the input options for the special question Gender (slug = gender).
For example, if you configure the Gender question as shown below,
your room configuration options for Show custom gender would appear as:
View all rooms
You may view rooms at Rooms > All Rooms. The Lodging Types column shows the primary lodging type for the room.
We always have room for you!
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