How to list your hotel on Cleartrip, from first contact to first booking

Cleartrip's website has no “List your property” page or link for hotels that want to list: neither its home page nor its hotel pages has one, and its support pages are for travellers. What exists for hotels is:

• Cleartrip Suite, the extranet for hotel partners, at suite.cleartrip.com. Its first screen asks for the email address of an existing account, and has no sign-up button.
• Suite by Cleartrip, the partner app on Google Play, which says it is built for hotel owners, revenue managers and front office staff listed on Cleartrip, and that you need an active Cleartrip Hotel Partner account to sign in.
• A letter from the Cleartrip Partner Team to its hotels, about coupon promotions, which calls the extranet CTSuite and tells hotels to contact their Account Manager with questions.

The extranet's screens show accounts opening by invitation: a property's admin is sent an invite “with rights to complete next steps”, and the registration screen opens from it. Cleartrip's pages don't say how a hotel with no account asks for one. The only partner address Cleartrip publishes is the support address on its app's store page, support@cleartrip.com. If you already work with a channel manager, ask whether it connects to Cleartrip: the extranet's onboarding has its own step for setting up a channel manager.

Cleartrip's terms of use describe it as acting as the agent of the hotels and other providers whose services it sells, and say that the descriptions, prices, photos and amenities shown for a hotel come from the hotel. What your listing says is yours to keep right.

The property type list in the extranet's onboarding has fifteen choices: Homestay, Hotel, Resort, Guest House, Apartment, Camp, Tree house, Hostel, Villa, Beach Hut, Aashram, Dharamshala, Houseboat, Motel and Palace. A homestay has its own type.

• Star rating: the property screen asks for one, from 1 star upwards, as a required field.
• Chain: an optional chain name, for a hotel that belongs to one.
• Team: the extranet's roles for a hotel's people are Owner, Revenue Manager, General Manager, Front Desk Manager, Hotel Content Manager, Rates & Inventory Manager, and Accounts & Payments Manager.

Cleartrip publishes no rules on the smallest number of rooms, licences, proof of ownership or who may register a property; the screens ask for none of these.

Have these ready before you, or Cleartrip, start the property's onboarding:

• The property: its name, type, star rating and any chain.
• Its address: Cleartrip's screen fills it from a search by hotel name, then asks for the latitude, longitude, country, state, city, locality, pin code and full address, with “Edit location pin” to move the pin on the map. Before you go on, it asks you to review the complete address and pin code.
• Contacts: added under Communication options with “Add contact”.
• Bank account details: beneficiary name, bank account number, IFSC code and bank name.
• Tax information: your GST number, PAN and TAN, or the “Non-GST hotel” switch if the property isn't registered for GST, in which case the GST box must stay empty.
• Check-in and check-out times and the currency, which start at 2 PM, 12 PM and INR.
• Children's ages: two age groups, Child 1 and Child 2.
• Rooms, rate plans and cancellation policies (see below).
• Any charges guests pay at the property, such as a security deposit or a local tax, under Additional charges.
• Photos: JPG or PNG, each at least 100 KB and under 19 MB, and between 300 by 300 and 8000 by 8000 pixels, up to 20 at a time.
• Your policies and amenities.

No onboarding screen asks you to upload an ownership document, an ID, a business registration or a cancelled cheque. Cleartrip may ask for these another way, but its pages don't say so.

Registering, from the invitation, as the extranet's screens show it:

1. 1On “Register your profile”, check the email address already filled in, and enter your first name, last name and mobile number. Click “Send OTP to verify”.
2. 2On “Complete registration”, enter the OTP sent to your email address and click “Verify and continue”. “Resend OTP” sends a new one.
3. 3On “Set password”, choose a password of at least 8 characters with a capital letter, a number and a special character, and enter it twice. Click “Verify and continue”.
4. 4When you see “Registration Successful, Please login”, sign in at suite.cleartrip.com with your email address, then your password or an OTP.

Adding a property, in the extranet:

1. 1Open “Properties” and click “Add new property”.
2. 2Basic details: the property, then its contact details. “Submit details” sends the property for Cleartrip's duplicate check (see the next section).
3. 3Contract details: the commission, payment, fees and taxes that apply to the property.
4. 4Finance details: the bank account and tax information.
5. 5Rooms: “Add Room” for each room type.
6. 6Default configuration: timings and currency, guest age groups, cancellation policy, rate plans, channel manager set-up, additional charges and extra prices.
7. 7Property details: photos, policies and amenities.
8. 8Use “Next”, “Back” and “Save draft” as you go. At the end, in the box titled “Details Saved”, click “Submit for review”.

The screens don't say which of these steps Cleartrip's team completes and which the hotel does: the contract details, for example, are set per hotel. Ask your Account Manager which are yours.

• Duplicates: after the first step, a box titled “Checking for similar properties” says Cleartrip is checking the property's details so that no duplicate is created, with an estimated time of 24 hours. If it finds similar listings, a “Select Property” box asks you to pick the right one or create a new one.
• A review: the “Details Saved” box says the property will go live after review by Cleartrip admin. The property list shows an “Approve” action once a property is complete.
• Photos: Cleartrip's team reviews new photos against its quality standards and notifies you when done. A photo can be marked as a duplicate, sub-quality or rejected, with its reasons, and a photo with no tag isn't shown in the gallery.
• Bank and tax details: the screens check their format, such as an IFSC code's pattern and a valid GST number and PAN.

Each property in the list shows a progress bar and a status: Listing in progress, Live or Disabled. Cleartrip publishes no time for the whole review, and its pages describe no document check, visit or code by post.

Cleartrip publishes no commission rate. In the extranet, commission is part of each property's contract details: a default rule that sets whether the commission is a fixed amount or a percentage, and whether it is charged on the gross price or the sell price. Cleartrip's letter to partners adds one rule: your standard Cleartrip commission is calculated on the gross booking value, before any coupon promotion discount.

Payments are also set per property, in a payments rule: whether you are paid the gross or the net amount, when (a number of days after booking, check-in or checkout, or before check-in or checkout), how (by virtual card or into your bank account) and in which currency. These are the options the screen offers, not published terms; your contract decides them.

• The “Payment” page shows the amount payable, total payouts done, amounts paid by bank transfer and by virtual card, and payments pending, with each booking's payment amount, bank reference number and payment date.
• Virtual card details can only be seen by the hotel's admin.
• GST invoices: for bookings where the guest gave a GST number, the extranet shows that a GST invoice is waiting, and you upload it with “Upload GST Invoice”, as a PDF, JPEG or PNG of up to 10 MB, with the customer's GST number written correctly.
• Reports include a payment statement, the invoice for the month, coupon invoices and a promotion snapshot.
• Coupon promotions: Cleartrip's letter says the discount is listed on your payment advice as “Coupon Promotion Amount”, after commission is worked out and deducted, and that Cleartrip issues a monthly GST invoice for the promotion services it provides.

Cleartrip's pages don't say how TCS or TDS are handled for Indian hotels, or whether GST is charged on its commission. Ask your Account Manager and your tax adviser before your first payout.

• Cancellation policies: “Add policy”, applied at hotel level or rate plan level, with the choices Non-refundable, Fully refundable, up to 24, 48 or 72 hours, or “Create custom”, where you set the days before check-in for a full refund and the charges after it, in room nights or as a share of the price.
• Rate plans: “Add rate plan”, with a name, the rate category (B2C for travellers, B2B and Corporate), meal plan inclusions, other inclusions, the rooms it covers, whether it is refundable, and optional start and end dates.
• Channel rates: separate rates for B2B and corporate sales, set as a discount below the B2C rate.
• Rates and rooms for sale: under “Rate & Inventory”, the calendar and “Bulk Update” change rates, inventory and restrictions such as a minimum number of days over a period.
• Channel manager: if you use one, answer “Do you use channel manager for your hotel?” in the CM Setup step, choose it and map your room and rate plan codes.
• Photos: tag every photo as a property or room photo, and assign it to rooms. Up to 5 can be featured, with one featured video added by link. Cleartrip's tips: natural daylight, rooms photographed tidy from several angles, landscape, and no watermarks.

The Content score, shown out of 100 on every property information page, breaks your content down section by section, lists the tasks still to do with a “Take me there” button for each, and says “No Pending tasks” when you are done. Cleartrip's screens don't say whether the score affects where you appear in search, but a complete listing is what guests read before they book.

Promotions sit under “Promotions”: primary promotions such as a flat discount, last-minute, long-stay, early-bird and day-of-week discounts; booster discounts for signed-in guests, mobile users, members of loyalty programmes such as Flipkart VIP and Myntra Insiders, and guests who booked a flight; and coupon promotions, which Cleartrip's letter describes as an extra discount you fund, shown only to Cleartrip website and app customers who apply a coupon code. The extranet also has Rate Drop, a last-minute discount for unsold rooms that you switch on for chosen days before arrival.

A property goes live once Cleartrip's admin has reviewed it, and its status changes from Listing in progress to Live. A live property gets a “View on CT” link to its page on cleartrip.com. Cleartrip's pages give no time for a new property to appear in search, and name no label or offer for new properties. A routine for the first week:

1. 1Install Suite by Cleartrip on your phone: its store page says it shows upcoming, active and past reservations with guest details and special requests, updates rates, availability and restrictions, and runs promotions.
2. 2Open “View on CT” and check your page as a guest would: room types, photos, prices, meals and cancellation terms.
3. 3Compare the price with your own website's for the same room, night and terms, signed out.
4. 4Check “Booking overview” each day, with its filters for today and tomorrow and the next 7 days, and its tabs for check-ins, check-outs and stayovers.
5. 5Open each booking for its trip ID, rate breakup and cancellation details, and “Download voucher”. The screen says the guest's contact details appear closer to check-in.
6. 6Upload a GST invoice for every booking that asks for one.
7. 7Finish the Content score's pending tasks, and keep the calendar open for the months ahead.

The extranet's “Help center” page has a “Contact support team” option, with business hours of Monday to Saturday, 9 AM to 6 PM IST. Cleartrip's pages don't say how new bookings are announced to hotels beyond the extranet and the app, or how guest reviews work for partners, so ask your Account Manager both in your first week. Our guide to checking your hotel's price on every booking site covers the price check in full.