Vik Booking 1.15 - Commited to succeeding

One of the largest and most innovative updates is here: Vik Booking 1.15! With this new major release we are introducing tens of new stunning features, including a new partnership with Google Hotel Ads and their Free Booking Links.
This epic update will turn your hotel website into the most competitive selling platform for your business. Thanks to an even more robust connection with Vik Channel Manager, our full software suite has never been so powerful before!

Discover the power of the new Vik Booking 1.15.

Tens of new stunning features will be right at your hands to face competitors in a completely different way. This new update is focusing even more on driving more direct bookings through your own website. A hotel website has never been so important or competitive, thanks to our new partnership with Google Hotel Ads and their Free Booking Links!

Vik Booking 1.15 is the result of 4 months of intense programming. The policy for upgrading to this version has not changed: those who have purchased a copy of Vik Booking, or a copy of the paid update, within 6 months from the release date (February 28th 2022) will be able to upgrade for free by using the Joomla native functions or our free plugin Vik Updater. Instead, the update is always free for those who have purchased both Vik Booking and Vik Channel Manager, no matter how long ago. Those who use our full solution have unlimited access to free updates.

The paid version of the update is available here for those who are not eligible to upgrade for free because they purchased only a copy of Vik Booking some time ago.

Discover some of the new features of this major release!

Dark mode

You are probably used to see your smartphone apply a dark color scheme at night, or to see some Apps of your desktop computer with dark colors. Preferences for dark color schemes are available on most operating systems, on both desktop and mobile devices.
That's why we decided to introduce a dark color scheme even in our extensions Vik Booking and Vik Channel Manager.

You'll probably notice the difference in no time, maybe on the first night you access your PMS or Booking Engine. Dark mode can obviously be disabled, set to "auto" or forced, to be applied all the times. Here's how your Vik Booking will look like on dark-mode:

Multitask panel and Browser Notifications.

This update introduces a new way to query your system for data. Any kind of information will be always available at your hands without needing to leave the current page. This is what the Multitask panel can do! Multitasking was not so easy to be thought on websites, but this revolutionary tool of Vik Booking will definitely make your life easier.

In the new Multitask panel you can render any admin widget with the ease of a click, to quickly access any sort of information.

As a result of this new interactive tool, we also developed a system to trigger browser notifications scheduled at a certain date and time to remind you of any kind of event. And that's not all, browser notifications will also keep you informed in real-time of any bookings, modifications, cancellations or any other important event that takes place while you are surfing the pages of your Booking Engine.

New country-tailored reports, electronic invoicing drivers and guests data collection methods

Three new robust features involve the PMS reports to query any kind of rates modification made throughout the various dates of the year, the new electronic invoices driver for myDATA AADE (Greece), and a brand new guests data collection system tailored for Italian properties.

We have made these parts of the framework extendable to be ready for the future for other countries who will adopt new legal requirements for invoicing or for reporting data to local authorities.

Inquiry reservations

Most of our clients that have been working with our Channel Manager and Airbnb for some time will probably know already what inquiries are. A similar function has been made available for guests visiting your website.

The new horizontal search module comes with a new setting to enable the "request information" form, which will collect information from your guests and when they would like to stay at your property. By submitting this form, Vik Booking will analyze the guest request as well as your availability for the provided dates, by allocating the "best" available room on a "pending inquiry" reservation.

This way, guests having flexible dates can be accommodated in a unique way, after getting in touch with the guest to satisfy their requests.

Last but not least, Vik Booking is now a certified Google Travel partner

This is stunning news for both property managers aware of the Google Hotel Ads - Free Booking Links, as well as for those who never heard of this service. Vik Channel Manager and an active e4jConnect subscription for the channel Google Hotel are required in order to be able to start using this new service, but we invite any property manager to consider the power behind this new opportunity.

Only a few certified Channel Manager providers worldwide have access to the Google Travel APIs, and we are delighted to be part of that group. This means that we are the first company who brings Google Hotel Ads - Free Booking Links to the world of Joomla (and WordPress), to a business field where webmasters, web-agencies, programmers or designers can offer their knowledge to hotel/property managers and deliver a unique product that competes with the best existing software. We are proud to be the only Channel Manager provider company that only focuses on CMS/Web-Software (Joomla and WordPress), where all data is collected by stuff that belongs to the properties, not from third party websites.

Being able to promote, for free, your best website rate on the Google search results or on the Google Travel platform is something that any property manager should be aware of. The bookings that you can drive will be completely exempt of any fees or commissions, and so this is a huge opportunity to reduce costs and maximize your revenue.

Visit our website at https://e4jconnect.com for more details about this new exciting feature and how to start using it!

What’s new in Vik Booking 1.15?

Discover more about Vik Booking - Visit the Demo website

Do you like what we've done so far?

Help Joomla and Vik Booking stay at the top by leaving a positive review for our component. This of course would help our company as well as the software, but it will also help the Joomla community be more reactive, as statistics say many Joomla users moved to WordPress lately. Our full solution is also available for WordPress websites with the same exact functions, but if you care about the Joomla project, then leaving a review for our component is a way to give your support.

Got Errors During the Update?

If the update process gave you some errors, then it may be possible that your current installation or account are not allowed to install the update to the latest version for free.

For example, if you received an error message like "Error connecting to the server: 403" or "403 Forbidden", then you are more likely to not have made any purchases within 6 months for this extension, for the Channel Manager, or for the paid version of the update. As explained above, if you have purchased the Channel Manager, then you are always allowed to download the updates for free without any other kind of extra charge.

If you are willing to purchase the Channel Manager or the paid version of the Update (available at this link), then you should make sure to make this purchase by using the same email address as for the first purchase of Vik Booking. This is fundamental, otherwise you will not allow your domain to be able to download and install the update.
If you are sure to meet the necessary requirements, and if you are still unable to download the free update, make sure that your domain is registered under your account on our website.

Other similar error messages that could mean the same thing are the followings:
"unregistered", "Failed to download package. Download it and install manually from....", "No purchases found for Vik Channel Manager...", "Error connecting to the server", "Forbidden", "403".

The easiest way to validate your license is to try to install the Update directly from your Joomla website.

We hope you enjoy your new Vik Booking!