How hotels are displayed
Each stop in the itinerary shows a hotel card with:
Hotel name and star rating
A thumbnail image
The selected room category
Cancellation policy indicators (particularly useful for identifying non-refundable rates)
If the template has a pre-selected hotel, it appears on the card immediately. If no hotel is pre-selected, the system displays recommendation tiles prompting the user to choose.
Hotel recommendation tiles
When a stop has hotel recommendations configured, Smart Planner displays recommendation tiles — compact cards showing the top 2–3 hotel options for that stop. Each tile shows the hotel name, star rating, a thumbnail, and the price difference relative to the current selection.
Users can select a recommended hotel directly by clicking its tile. This updates the itinerary immediately with the new hotel and adjusts the trip price.
Browsing more hotels (Hotel Drawer)
If the user wants to explore beyond the recommendations, they can click "More options" (or a similar prompt) to open the Hotel Drawer. This is a side panel that slides in from the right and displays a larger selection of available hotels for that stop.
Inside the hotel drawer:
Hotels are listed with images, ratings, pricing, and room category details.
The user can scroll through available options.
Selecting a hotel from the drawer replaces the current selection on the itinerary and closes the drawer.
The hotel drawer fetches live availability and pricing, so results reflect real-time supply.
Room upgrades
Once a hotel is selected, the user can upgrade the room category without changing the hotel. On the hotel card, there is an option to customise which opens a focused view showing:
The currently selected room category
Available upgrade options (e.g., Standard → Superior → Suite)
The price difference for each upgrade
Selecting an upgrade updates the room category and adjusts the trip price accordingly.
Changing hotels
Users can replace the selected hotel entirely by clicking "Change hotel" on the hotel card. This re-opens the hotel drawer, allowing them to browse all available hotels for that stop and select a different one.
When a hotel is changed:
The itinerary updates with the new hotel's details and pricing.
Room category resets to the default for the new hotel.
Other components (flights, transfers, activities) remain unchanged.
For administrators
Hotels in Smart Planner rely on the same supplier integrations and hotel inventory configured in your TripBuilder instance. No additional hotel-specific configuration is needed for Smart Planner beyond:
Ensuring your hotel suppliers are active and returning availability.
Configuring hotel recommendations on your templates (the same recommendation setup used for the legacy planner applies).
Verifying that pricing is correctly returned by the "from price" endpoint for recommendation tiles.