What are date-level inventory opportunities and how do I access them?

What are date-level inventory opportunities?

These opportunities are generated for specific dates whenever a certain inventory situation is detected in our system. As these are inventory-related opportunities, they’re also classified as ‘Provider’ opportunities.This means they must be implemented by the property directly on your platform (or by their PMS), not via our extranet.

These opportunities are fundamentally different from other Booking.com opportunities because they’re:

• Recurring (with potentially many eligible opportunities for each property)
• Generated at room and date level, not property level
• Highly time-sensitive (eligibility can change from one day to the next)

These opportunities are designed to optimise properties’ availability on our platform by highlighting specific dates when they can either have no inventory (such as high-demand dates) or have blocked inventory (i.e. not shown to guests) due to incorrect restrictions.

What does the date_level_inventory_opportunities feature do?

1. This feature allows you to access opportunities that are generated for specific room and date combinations These are communicated via the implementation_data element in the API response (entity_type = ‘stay_id’, where stay_id = roomid_staydate)
2. Currently this includes two different opportunities: high_demand_dates_inventory opportunities (to notify properties when they have no inventory for upcoming high-priority dates); and blocked_by_min_length_of_stay opportunities (to notify properties whenever they have a room for which none of the active rates can be booked due to mLOS restrictions). These opportunities are highly contextual and operational, and as the action needs to be taken on the channel manager/PMS system, we recommend displaying them on your interface – ideally on the pages where properties update their availability and restrictions (like your Calendar page, for example). 
3. These opportunities are time sensitive and may expire very quickly. That’s why we’ve made them very easy to act on. All your property needs to do is add more inventory or lower minimum LOS restrictions for specific dates and rooms. We’ve made this process even simpler by enabling you to show these opportunities directly on your interface.
4. You can retrieve these opportunities by using the query feature of the Opportunities API, and filtering the response for opportunities that have ‘implementation: Provider’, or by using the relevant opportunity_id
5. The action for this opportunity is to adjust inventory/restrictions for a specific stay_id. This needs to be done on your interface and communicated via the Rates & Availability API using the standard workflow for adding/updating inventory.
6. We monitor inventory changes in our system to detect the implementation of these opportunities by your properties.

How do I activate this feature?

Before you can access these opportunities, you have to implement the Opportunities API with at least ten non-test properties. 

Once you’ve implemented the Opportunities API, you can enable the date_level_inventory_opportunities feature in seven easy steps:

1. Let us know when you’re starting the integration process. You can do this by emailing us at connectivity@booking.com.
2. Set up a test property if you don’t already have one (we don’t recommend using real properties for testing). Our support team will provide all the necessary information to help get you started.
3. Log in to connect.booking.com.
4. Click on the ‘Administration’ tab on the top right of the page.
5. Select ‘Feature Management’ from the drop-down menu.
6. Scroll down the list and click on ‘Enable date-level inventory opportunities’ (please note that when you click on this – or on ‘View details’ – you’ll see an example of the API response).
7. Use the toggle to enable the feature.

NOTE: This feature replaces the high_demand_dates_inventory provider feature. Enabling the new feature will give you access also to the newly added blocked_by_min_length_of_stay opportunities. If you’ve already enabled the high_demand_dates_inventory feature, we advise switching on this new feature as well, to make sure your implementation will continue to work as expected.

Once the feature has been enabled, follow the technical documentation to start requesting these opportunities. If you’d like more information, or to download the handbook on the Opportunities API product, please visit the Connectivity Hub.

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