DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN ONLINE HOTEL RESERVATION SYSTEM WITH PAYMENT INTEGRATION (A CASE STUDY OF LE-MERIDIAN HOTEL)

Thesis Overview

1.1 INTRODUCTIONHotel Management System operates a global online hotel reservation system for business and leisure travelers. To compete with the international e-marketplace, a great deal of attention should pay towards the optimization of user requirements to generate recommended hotel alternatives. In general sense, hotel management is the way of maintaining different activities of a hotel where a number of staffs are engaged to perform a number of these activities. At first let us take a glance to an ordinary hotel. For hiring a room in this type of hotel, the client needs to meet with the receptionist to collect the information of hotel facilities. After that he is to fill up the pro forma provided by the hotel authority, then he has to pay the defined amount of money and is offered room key for his/her rented room. He/she is then finishes the formalities a reception zone through these undergoing customs. But client always wants greater privacy and reliable security.The Hotel Industry like any other business opens up socio-economic opportunities for both owner and customer. It has the function of providing hospitality services to customers. These customers can be travelers, foreigners, businessmen, tourists, visitors, etc. Customers are mostly constrained in trying to get a room to pass the night, as the usual practice is to look for a hotel when you have arrived in the particular location, walk in and find out whether there is a vacant room. In the case that there is no vacant room, you have to move to next closest hotel to enquire once more. So what happens if you move around sometimes very late in the night in search of a room and all close by hotels are fully booked? Other times you may be lucky to have the contact number of the hotel to reach them to book for a room. But do the hotel attendants really ensure to keep a room for you? You would be lucky to go and get a room booked for you. They are quick to serve those who walk in rather than those who may get access to them on phone to book a room. On other times too, if you have friends or family members in the area you want a room booked, they have to go and do the checking for you. There is no system in place that bonds the hotel and the customer that the customer has actually booked a room and for that matter he is guaranteed a room. This can make customers really stranded especially if it is getting late in the night. The study therefore aimed at developing an online hotel reservation system to enable customers’ book for whatever they need from wherever location they are before lodging into the hotel. The system is to allow for easy access and retrieval of information and reporting. With such a system in place, Le Meridian Hotel would be more competitive in Nigeria and across Africa. 1.2 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDYThis study aims to develop an Online Hotel Reservation System for Le Meridian Hotel for Tourism and Hospitality, this study has the following objectives:

1. To design an online Hotel reservation system for the increase of Hospitality Management.
2. To provide features that will familiarize customers with the online hotel reservation system.
3. 3.  To evaluate the system and highlight the benefits the system can provide to the hotel management and it customers.
4. Eliminate paperwork in booking hotel customers into rooms and save time.
5. Eliminate duplicate data entry and errors in time and hotel customer entries.

1.3 PURPOSE OF THE STUDYThe purpose of this research is to develop an online based Hotel Reservation system for registering people seeking to book room(s) in the hotel, getting their details; their stay duration, their room type and related field. The system will collect all this information and notify the hotel to reserve a room for the customer automatically without time consuming which is reliable and without mistakes.1.4 STATEMENT OF PROBLEMIn most hospitality institutions the room’s reservations are taken manually. It is not only time consuming, but it is also unsecure and unreliable and it can be lost. Some hotels use manual paper attendance sheets for reserving rooms while this will be difficult for hotel managers to keep track of the large number of customers trying to book rooms and those room already booked by using paper sheets.1.5     SCOPE OF THE STUDYThe scope of the project is limited to several processes handled at Le Meridian Hotel, the processes include - handling of customer’s room reservations, managing room selected by customers with their durations, record rooms currently unavailable to avoid duplication. It will generate the reports such as the recent records of the hotels activities. The Online Hotel Reservation System is designed in such a way that makes it possible to access through the internet platform. 1.6     DEFINITION OF TERMS-       Hotel: an establishment providing accommodation, meals, and other services for travelers and tourists.-       HTML: Hypertext Markup Language is the standard markup language for creating web pages and web applications. -       CSS: Cascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language like HTML.-       Hospitality: the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers.-               Online: while connected to a computer or under computer control.-       Tourism: the commercial organization and operation of holidays and visits to places of interest.-       Paperwork: routine work involving written documents such as reports or letters.-       Reception: The action of admitting someone to a place, group, or institution or the process of being admitted.-       Reports: an account given of a particular matter, especially in the form of an official document, after thorough. Investigation or consideration by an appointed person or body.