Tour allotment and capacity management, done right

Selling a tour past its allotment costs an agency more than a lost sale: a guest with no room at the hotel, a refund, reputational damage, and sometimes compensation. This article covers keeping allotment accurate per channel and date, with the system itself — not a person — stopping the double sale.

Why allotment needs a lock, not a spreadsheet

Tracking allotment in a spreadsheet does not stop two salespeople from looking at the same date at the same time and both seeing “available”; because the sheet is updated by hand, the second sale is only caught once the first one has been entered. A system that keeps allotment directly on the record checks remaining stock at the moment of sale and refuses the second request the instant the first is confirmed. This has to be a block at the database level, not a warning message — otherwise two open browser tabs can race for the “last seat.”

Option and hold windows

When a seat is held for a customer (an option), that window should be configurable per firm — 24 hours, 48 hours, whatever fits. When it expires, the seat returns to stock automatically; nobody has to remember to release it by hand. That automatic release shows up as an auditable event on the record — which option opened when, and when it lapsed, stays queryable later.

Minimum participants and waitlists

Group tours are often conditioned on a minimum participant count; fall short and the tour is cancelled or repriced. The allotment screen should surface that threshold and report tours sitting below it. Once allotment is full, new requests should drop into a waitlist; when a cancellation comes in, the next request in line moves up automatically.

Example

Picture a 12-seat yacht tour: 10 seats sold, 2 remaining. In the same minute, one request comes from an online channel and another from the office, both for those last 2 seats. In a system that keeps allotment split by channel and locked at the record, whichever request reaches the database first takes both seats; the other is refused instantly with “allotment full,” and the office salesperson offers the customer the next available date. Without a channel split, both requests could appear to succeed, leaving the tour with 14 people instead of 12.

How it works in Rotenta

1. The Tour Allotment screen defines total stock per tour/date and its split across channels (office, online channel, sub-agent).
2. When a Booking is created, the system checks remaining stock against that same date and source; if stock is insufficient, the record is refused outright, with no second confirmation screen.
3. When an option opens, its window is read from the firm’s setting; once it lapses the seat returns to stock automatically, and that event stays visible in the record’s history.
4. Once allotment is full, new requests are added to a waitlist; when a cancellation arrives, the next request is pushed to the salesperson as a notification.
5. Channel-level sales volume and occupancy are tracked from the Channel and Commission screen, alongside each channel’s payout.

Allotment is only one piece of our travel agency software: once a sale is confirmed, turning it into a document is covered in our vouchers and contracts article, and channel-level commission math in channel and sub-agent commissions. Price lists are defined alongside allotment; see how the two work together in the accounting module.

Frequently asked questions

We sell the same tour through several channels — office, online, sub-agents. Does allotment get mixed up?

No; allotment is defined per tour/date, and each channel’s share is tracked separately. If total stock is exceeded, the extra request is refused regardless of which channel it came from.

Does the customer get notified automatically when an option expires?

When the window lapses the seat returns to stock and the event is recorded; the salesperson sees it and follows up with the customer. How far notifications extend beyond that depends on the rules your team sets up.

How is a waitlist request prioritized?

Requests are listed in the order they arrived; when a cancellation comes in, the next request is pushed to the salesperson as a notification, so you don’t have to track the order by hand.

What happens if the minimum participant count isn’t reached?

The tour shows up in a report once it falls below the defined threshold; whether to cancel or reprice is the agency’s own policy call — the system surfaces the threshold, it does not enforce a decision automatically.

Can allotment be changed retroactively?

An allotment record tied to a completed sale in the past is not edited; an allotment update for a new period or date opens as a separate record, so the conditions of a past sale are never lost. If you’d like help setting up your own allotment calendar, reach out.