01 December 2011 : Written by Geoff Vaughan
On-line booking for Campsites
An excellent article about On-line booking for campsites and holiday parks has come out in the latest edition of the BH&HPA journal. Written by Steve Knowlson it pulls together all the different types of on-line booking systems on the market. From ones which are designed specifically to be used on a Park's website to Campingninja which can be used with any booking system to drive extra bookings to your Park or Campsite.The article is full of testimonials from campsite owners such as Norman Bliss from Lower Treave, Andrea Gosling from Forest Glade and Richard Barnes from Tehidy.
The article is based around the campsite owner's interviews and the following themes come out.
- Control - Both for the park and the customer. Parks stay in control of bookings and can configure pitches, nights, prices quickly and easily. On-line booking allows you greater ability to make sure the right people are coming to your park.
Campingninja says,"We have added functionality for the parks so they can display messages to campers which must be agreed to before making a booking. These are then repeated on confirmation e-mails which they bring with them. This gives campsite owners far greater control and makes sure they are getting the right people onto their park".
- Convenience - Parks and customers benefit from the convenience that on-line booking provides. Customers want to book on-line, when they want.
Campingninja says, "Our bookings in 2011 showed that the vast majority of our bookings were made in the evening. At the very time of the day when traditional campsite receptions were shut. Allowing on-line booking captures those bookings without having to reply to e-mails the next day or voicemails"
- Security - On-line bookings and payments are made over a secure connection, with all sensitive data encrypted. Added to this the parks are charged a far lower rate than cashing cheques!
Campingninja says, "We come across campsites that are having to spend their precious time cashing and processing cheques. Using cheques is the last thing their customers want to use and I doubt the park owners enjoying keeping track of it all manually and trudging down to the bank on a regular basis. This is why we allow campsites to set whatever deposit amount they wish and all funds are transferred electronically to their designated account."
- Keeping costs down - Significant savings can be made in handling bookings, taking payments and general administration associated with answering the phone or postal bookings. A telephone booking can take 15mins, so using an on-line booking system can free up staff time for other duties.
Campingninja says, " There is no doubt that one of our biggest aims is to free up campsites owners' and their staff's time. Why pay someone to come into the office in the morning to answer e-mail booking requests and telephone enquiries about availability? Those enquiries should be bookings waiting for you in the morning".
All in all an excellent article from the team at the BH&HPA about on-line booking for campsites and holiday parks and we were delighted to be a part of it. If you are looking to introduce on-line booking then do get in touch. We work with campsites and parks who have the most advanced booking systems in the world to campsites that have no website who even direct their phone call bookings to their booking page on Campingninja. We do all the booking and processing of payments for them and they get on with running their park.
To find out more get in touch with the team on info@campingninja.com or call us on 0118 942 1307