BSc Computing and BEng Software

Engineering program.

SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN

Module number: SWE5306

Module Tutor: Dili Ojukwu

Student ID: HE 26812
 Initial Requirements Report
Countryside Hotel Reservation System

Table of Content

1. Overview of the Case Study System............................................................................................2

2. Stakeholder Identification and Roles...........................................................................................3
3. Problem Identification...................................................................................................................4
4. Opportunities for Improvement....................................................................................................5
5. Reflection on Initial Findings........................................................................................................8
6. References.....................................................................................................................................9

1. Overview of the Case Study System

Hotels are heavily dependent on room reservations‚ and smaller hotels in the countryside usually
take reservations over the phone or through email‚ and maintain handwritten logbooks of the room
bookings․

This is fine when there are only a few bookings‚ but guests today often want the option for a faster
and more convenient online booking with rising customer demand․

The Countryside Hotel Reservation System is a computer program which is used to store‚ organize
and retrieve hotel reservations‚ room information and guest information․ This project is designed to
help customers book rooms and help hotel staff manage the reservations․ Centralized reservation
systems help hotels to reduce paperwork and booking errors and to improve service․

The system allows guests to search for rooms‚ enter check-in/check-out dates and complete the
booking through the Internet․ For the hotel staff‚ the system features include monitoring
reservations made‚ determining the availability of rooms‚ cancelling bookings‚ and generating
occupancy reports․

The reservation system has several components‚ including a client-facing online interface through
which customers book rooms․ Using the software‚ hotel staff are able to manage current room
bookings and hotel records via an administrative interface‚ accessing information from a central
database․ Payment gateways can also be added to process online payments․
The goals of all these systems were to make the booking process easier for the customer‚ reduce
mistakes in the manual booking process and give hotel managers an overview of the bookings․

The overall system environment can be represented with the following context diagram․

The diagram shows that the reservation system acts as the central component that connects
customers, hotel staff, payment services, and the booking database. Through this integration,
the system helps streamline the booking process and improve operational efficiency.

2. Stakeholder Identification and Roles

There are several groups of users of the Countryside Hotel Reservation System‚ and their
requirements of the system‚ as well as their use‚ are different․ Identifying these stakeholders helps
make sure that the system is designed according to the needs of its users․

The end users of this architecture are the customers or hotel guests․ They use the reservation
system when searching for available rooms or booking them․ Users of this system expect it to be
user-friendly‚ accurate and reliable․ Users expect that advertised room availability reflects reality
and that a booking successfully completes with clear confirmation․ Thus‚ if the system returns
inaccurate information‚ or is not user-friendly‚ customers may not complete the booking process and
choose to stay at other hotels․

The hotel staff also utilize the system‚ such as hotel receptionists and administrative staff using the
back-end of the hotel management system to record hotel bookings‚ process bookings‚ cancel
bookings‚ and record hotel guests checking in and out of the hotel․ The system should make daily
tasks easier for the hotel employees․ An A well-designed system can help staff accurately and
quickly handle bookings with fewer errors than a human․

Hotel management using the system to monitor their hotel's performance‚ analyze hotel booking
trends and for use in determining rates and availability is yet another key group of stakeholders․
Timely and accurate reservation information provides managers with knowledge of
occupancy‚ seasonal demand‚ and revenues․
IT system administrators or system maintainers are those employees that are responsible for the
operation of the reservation system․ Their tasks include keeping the system stable and
secure‚ protecting the data of customers‚ and maintaining the system on a regular basis․

Finally‚ if online payment options are available‚ payment service providers may receive payment
requests from the reservation system‚ and report the payment results back to it․

The following diagram illustrates the relationships between the stakeholders and the reservation
system․

Understanding these stakeholders and their needs is important because the system must
support both customer-facing features and internal operational functions.

3. Problem Identification
While hotel reservation systems have many advantages‚ they also have some problems
associated with their implementation․

A common problem is incorrect room availability․ This occurs when bookings are not updated in
real time so that guests try to reserve the same accommodation for the same dates ․
Furthermore‚ double bookings caused by this often lead to decreased customer satisfaction and
cause problems for hotel staff․

Usability and navigation within the system may be problematic as well․ Users can face issues
such as difficulty in completing the booking process within a complicated or poorly designed
booking engine․ A customer could have trouble searching for available rooms‚ understanding
pricing options‚ or going through the payment process․

The system can also be non-transparent about the steps of the booking process‚ such as the
various steps for selecting the room‚ confirming the payment‚ and verifying the booking․ If these
steps are not clear
presented‚ customers may wonder whether or not their booking was completed successfully․

Data security is also an important topic․ Reservation systems‚ especially those used in the
hospitality business‚ can store personal information such as contact and payment information․
Without such provisions‚ the system is necessarily vulnerable to breach and to unauthorized
access to the data it contains․

Thus‚ hotel operators may also find the system not to be of much use if the reports and
analytics provided by the system are not useful for monitoring the hotel's occupancy rate‚ peak
booking periods or overall performance․

Therefore‚ in addition to the booking function‚ reliability‚ usability‚ and security of user data
should be important requirements for a good reservation system․

4. Opportunities for Improvement

There are a number of modifications and improvements which could improve the Countryside Hotel
Reservation System․
An important improvement would be to allow real time updates on the room availability to prevent
double bookings once the reservation is made to the database․ Real time synchronization ensures
that customers always have the correct information available regarding availability․
Another suggested improvement is to improve the booking process through improved guidance
such as how to choose dates and a room‚ and how to confirm the payment and receive a
confirmation‚ as well as through supplying a summary of the booking before it is finalized․
Secondly‚ we can improve the design of the user interface․ A better user interface will improve
customers' experiences at the site‚ allowing them to search and book rooms simply and easily․
Showing the search filter‚ room description‚ and the right price to customers will help them make the
right choice․
The management perspective would also employ analytical and reporting tools to track booking
patterns‚ occupancy rates‚ and seasonal variations in demand over time․ This would‚ in turn‚ help
hotel managers in establishing price levels and promotions․
Another potential change would be to implement secure online payment systems so that
reservations could be paid for at the time of booking‚ discouraging cancellations and increasing
convenience․

The improved system architecture is presented in the following․

These improvements would enhance system reliability, improve customer satisfaction, and
support more effective hotel management.

DFD for the the reservation process :

5. Reflection on Initial Findings

The Countryside Hotel Reservation System was analyzed using the structured systems
analysis approach․ The first step in the structured systems analysis approach was to
determine the system stakeholders and their interaction with the system․ This helped to better
establish the limits of the system and its role within the hotel․

Next were the business processes: customers searching for rooms; staff booking rooms and
then updating various records․ Each had potential problems: for example‚ inaccurate and
inconsistent data about room availability‚ and undefined and poorly documented business
processes related to booking rooms․

A number of assumptions have been made‚ for example that the reservation system allows
for online booking and might also support payment systems․

assumed that the system maintained a centralized database of room information‚ reservation
information‚ and customer information․

Limitations of this research include the fact that the analysis is based on a theoretical model
of reservation systems rather than an empirical analysis of a specific hotel's system‚ therefore
there may be some differences between the theory and the real world implementation․

Further research might involve interviewing hotel staff and customers to explore their
experiences with the reservation systems‚ as well as reviewing system documentation and
analyzing booking data to gain a greater understanding of the systems' performance and any
issues that may have arisen․

Overall‚ reliability and easy interactability of a hotel reservation system as well as a

trustworthy integration of other systems in the hotel are the most relevant factors to be
improved for a better customer and employee satisfaction․
6. References

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