feratel

The guest is in Deskline. They are spoken to somewhere else.

In the destination, guest registration runs through Deskline. The guests are there, the businesses are there, the activities are there. It is the system that actually knows the place.

But the path from the registration form to the guest email leads through an export, a spreadsheet and somebody holding the two together. And the more often that path is walked, the less it holds.

The feratel interface to Caymland M4 takes that path out. Guest data from Deskline arrives in Caymland continuously, and in such a way that a guest who has been here before stays the same contact.

What feratel is

feratel media technologies from Innsbruck has worked for tourism since 1978, with more than 200 specialists at twelve locations in eight countries, including Switzerland. At its heart is Deskline, the destination management system that tourism organisations use to run their hosts, bookings, enquiries, brochure orders, guest registration and guest card. More than 4,000 destinations rely on feratel's solutions, which also include over 1,000 panoramic cameras across Europe.

Deskline knows who stays where and when. What Deskline is not: the system you use to delight guests before arrival, accompany them during their stay and bring them back after departure. That is exactly why the interface connects Deskline with Caymland M4.

Two routes in one interface

feratel does not deliver on one channel but on two. The integration serves both, and you set up what you need.

The web service collects only what is new. The interface remembers the point up to which it last read and continues from there next time. No full extract on every run, no runtime creeping up across the season.

How a returning guest is recognised

This is where guest data differs from address data. The same guest comes every year, sometimes spelled differently, sometimes with their partner's address, sometimes with no email address at all.

The interface therefore works in a fixed order: first the primary match code from Deskline, then the second, and only after that the email address. If none of them hits, a new contact is created.

That order is deliberate. The identifier from guest registration is more stable than an address that changes. Matching on the email address first creates a second contact on every stay with a new address – and that is exactly what produces the databases nobody wants to sort out.

Deskline also supplies an address quality indicator. It sits on the contact and can be used in segments, for instance to limit a send to addresses of dependable quality.

The switch we talk about openly

There is a setting called "import may change registration status". It is set to No by default, and that is the right default.

On "No" the import does not touch existing blocks. Anyone who has unsubscribed stays unsubscribed, even if they arrive again next week and reappear on a registration form.

On "Yes" an import lifts existing blocks – with the exception of the blacklist, which always remains. That is only defensible if your registration form genuinely carries a fresh consent and you can justify it.

We do not quietly set this switch to "Yes". Anyone who needs it decides that deliberately.

When the drop location is not yours

The activity export often lands somewhere you may only read from. Processed files can be neither moved nor deleted there.

The interface solves this with a record of what it has already read, identified by name, size and timestamp. The same file is therefore not read a second time, even though it stays where it is.

In fairness this belongs with it: if a file's timestamp changes on the far side, it counts as new and is read again. If your drop location rewrites files regularly, we settle that during setup rather than hunting for it later.

When your export looks different

Destinations do not all deliver identically. If your export deviates from the template, a mapping file is stored describing which field goes where. It overlays the built-in mapping selectively.

Which means: a deviating destination is a setting, not a piece of programming.

What arrives from the bookings

Every activity from the B2B export becomes a line with the guest in Caymland M4, with everything good guest communication needs:

Cancellations arrive too. If a cancellation carries the ID of the original booking, exactly that booking is marked as cancelled, with the date. So no anticipation email goes to someone who is no longer coming.

Prospects count too. Enquiries, offers and brochure orders sit with the contact just like bookings. Anyone who ordered a brochure but has not booked yet is a valuable audience of their own.

Country and language are standardised. Country names in German, English, French or Italian become the country code, and the guest's language becomes their preferred language. So every guest gets their email in their own language.

What you can do with it

The whole journey with the guest. Each contact's profile has its own tab with all bookings, enquiries and brochure orders, each with arrival, accommodation and price. When two contacts are merged, the bookings go with them.

Audiences from stays. Every booking field is a filter: accommodation, host, room category, sales channel, marketing code, number of nights, number of children. Families with children, guests of a particular region, returning guests with three or more stays, brochure orders without a booking: each is a condition, not an export job.

Before arrival, after departure. Dates can be relative too, such as "arrival in three days" or "departure two days ago". A campaign checks the bookings daily and writes to every guest at the right moment: anticipation and arrival tips before, thanks and an invitation to return afterwards.

The booking in the message. Arrival, departure, accommodation, host, room category and nights are available as placeholders in email, SMS and WhatsApp, in the subject too and with your own date format. Whole sections appear only for accommodation or for additional services. In the preview you choose a real booking and see the message exactly as that guest will receive it.

Which email booked? Every new booking is attributed to the campaign email the guest received in the seven days before, preferably one they opened. The "Transactions" report shows bookings and revenue by campaign, segment, accommodation and channel.

Stages and assistant. Customer journey stages count bookings and the time since the last stay, filtered by source, type and channel. And the AI assistant knows every guest's bookings when you ask it.

What you need

On the feratel side:

• Access to the Deskline Service Interface with endpoint, originator, query type and code
• The languages in which you want to draw data
• For activities: a directory or an SFTP account

On the Caymland M4 side:

• Activate the feratel integration and store the credentials
• Decide whether the import may change registration status
• Store the mapping file if your export deviates

The attributes the interface needs on the contact are created by it during setup. You do not have to prepare any fields.

What this looks like day to day

The anticipation email. The registration is recorded, the contact is in Caymland, and the pre-arrival journey starts – without anyone exporting a list.

The returning guest. On the fourth stay it is the fourth stay and not the fourth contact. The message is allowed to refer to that.

The clean send. Anyone who left an address of doubtful quality can be left out through a segment, rather than dragging down the delivery rate of the whole send.

From brochure to booking. Anyone who orders a summer brochure in winter receives hiking tips and three matching places to stay two weeks later. If they book, they drop out of the journey automatically, and the report shows which email booked.

The family before the holidays. Three days before arrival, guests with children receive a different email from couples: playgrounds, family offers and the address of their accommodation, in their language.