What is a product

In this article, we will delve into the definition of a product and address the key concepts associated with it.

Throughout various chapters, we will explore the essential elements required to prepare your product to make it available for booking.

In this tutorial we'll visit the following steps

1. What is a product: understanding the key concepts of a product
2. Create a product: learn how to create a product
3. Create a product - General: understanding the general tab and how to set it up
4. Create a product - General - Catalogues and sales channel: understanding product catalogues and sales channels.
5. Create a product - General - Seasons: Guide to setting up seasons
6. Create a product - Accommodations: Learn how to manage accommodations
7. Create a product - Boards: Learn how to manage boards
8. Create a product - Price blocks: understanding prices and related concepts and how to configure them 
9. Create a product - Allotments: understanding allotments and how to set allotments
10. Notifications: understanding notifications and blocking availability

What is a product

A product is a single service used within a trip and only needs to be created when:

• you manage your own product contract for it
• and/or if you wish to feature this product on your website or set it up as an external product through mapping.

A product has a specific service type:

• This can be an hotel, excursion, transfer, flight, ...

Each product type, whether it be a hotel, transfer, flight, or motorhome rental, shares a common data structure. The variations among them are primarily in the specific details that depend on the parameters you set during product setup.

Prices and availability

In the context of product management, it is essential to understand that it focuses on the actual composition of the product, particularly regarding pricing and availability. These modules can be configured varying from simple to very complex structures. We will explore these concepts in greater detail in dedicated articles.

Contracts

Some suppliers work with multiple contract versions (A/B/C/D...) that each carry distinct pricing. Throughout the season, the supplier may ask you to switch to a different contract version. You can find how to manage this in the following article

Marketing

Marketing content, such as images and descriptions, is managed within the Tide Content Management System (CMS). Each CMS product can be linked to a Product Information Management (PIM) product, ensuring a seamless integration of marketing assets with the underlying product details.

We will provide a comprehensive, step-by-step walkthrough of the concepts and setup process.

Product properties

A product can be divided into seven primary sections, each of which can be customized to meet specific needs.

• Data: These are the general product properties e.g. service type, name, location, addresses, duration of stay, allotment properties ...
• Accommodations: the configuration of your rooms, flight seats, transfer capacities, and other accommodations...

• Boards: meal and accommodation plans included in a hotel stay or travel package.

• Price rules: Price rules define how prices are determined, adjusted and displayed to customers. This section enables you to establish various pricing strategies ranging from a simple price structure to an complex set of pricing rules with different seasons that can be set up depending on your need.

1. • You can choose to set up purchase prices. In that case, Tide will automatically calculate sales prices based on the margin configuration. (learn how to set up margin here)

   • You can choose to opt for pre-calculate sales price and set up both the purchase and predetermined sales prices in Tide. (E.g. might apply to a fully purchased group tour).

   • You can choose not to set up prices and map accommodation and regimes with external providers. In this case, Tide will use the price of the external provider as purchase price and automatically calculated sales price when using the product in the booking.

• Availability: The availability settings can customised e.g. set allotment, use product as on request service, free sales, ... When the product is setup of the have allotment allocation an extra tab "allotment" will be shown.
• Subservices: create intricate pre-packaged products by configuring subproducts.
• Notifications: configure messages that need to populate on the created files, documents, communications towards other parties. Configure specific periods when the product is unavailable for sale.

Next: creating a product