The online booking system with which it will be possible to book overnight stays in accommodation facilities along trails, paths and mountaineering routes has been presented. As of Monday, March 25, a statement from the Italian Alpine Club says, managers will be able to request that their mountain hut, guesthouse or stage point be listed on the portal.

The 'Portale Cai dell'escursionista' (which the Club alpino italiano has created with the support of the Ministry of Tourism) is designed to help walkers and mountaineers easily locate refuges and high-altitude accommodations where they can stay overnight along trails, paths and alpine routes, is the new important service for mountain tourism.

Through the portal at www.prenotarifugi.cai.it, it will be possible to book overnight stays at Alpine Club refuges, private refuges, guesthouses and stopover points along selected hiking and mountaineering routes from any device, drastically lowering the time it takes to organize a multi-day hike.

The new Cai-branded online booking system will be multilingual (Italian, English, French, and German) and will automatically check facility opening periods and accommodation availability.

"I think this is the most important project of the Cai in recent years, today in our country there is nothing similar," said Antonio Montani, president of the Cai, at the presentation of the project. "The portal is a tool designed and tailored to the needs of walkers, where they can book, with ease for the user and usefulness for the manager, everything related to outdoor accommodation. It will be possible to book all overnight stays of a trek in a single session and with a single payment of all deposits."

"In addition to facilitating the user," the president concluded, "this will make the portal a powerful system for promoting trails, walks and entire mountain territories.
The portal will also feature a mapping system with trail and walking tracks, 100 thousand km of which are already online.

For the first time, an online management system will make it possible to book individual beds, not rooms. It will be possible to search by facility name, by location or by navigating on the map map, with accommodations appearing while exploring an individual area.

With this project, the Cai also wants to facilitate and simplify the management of reservations for mountain hut owners, who will be able to customize their facility's page by including information on prices, opening periods and beds, as well as photos and descriptions. Everything will be updatable in real time.

The manager will receive notifications for all bookings received, which they can manage with a series of filters. Translation of content into other languages will be automatic, as will the updating of available beds.

Deposit payments will be able to be made by credit card, bank transfer and Paypal.

The Italian Alpine Club plans to finalize the 'Portale Cai dell'escursionista' by the beginning of the summer season.