Do You Offer Online Booking? If Not, You Might Get Left Behind…
The pandemic has seen more people book, buy and reserve products, experiences, holidays (and even cars) online than ever before. Confined to barracks during lockdown, millions turned to online purchases – where they may have never done so before – in order to try and carry on with their lives.
But research shows that a large percentage may now never go back to their previous (offline) ways – and their online habits are here to stay.
So, this begs the question… if you don’t currently offer online booking for your holiday park or campsite, are you missing out? Will your customers simply go elsewhere and book a stay on a site where they can instant secure their holiday?
If your holiday business still doesn’t offer online booking, we’ve highlighted 5 key reasons why we think it’s something you should consider – sooner rather than later.
1. Take Bookings 24/7
Most bookings take place during the evenings, out of office hours, and at weekends. Sunday and Monday nights tend to be extremely popular for holiday bookings, our research shows. If a potential customer cannot complete the transaction without speaking to you over the phone or online, they may get frustrated and look elsewhere.
By having online booking software for your campsite or caravan park you would be able to service the requirements of these customers there and then – and they’d be less likely to plump for a rival park down the road that does offer online booking.
2. Reduce Your Admin & Management Time
How much of your time does it currently take to process a single booking? Take into account the contact time with your customer (email or on the phone), payment processing, managing the bookings on your site (for example, moving people around and onto different pitches or units), subsequent email confirmations and any further payments, refunds or cancellations.
Now consider how much time you’d save by having an online booking system that handled payment and communication instantly – and made moving or amending a booking a piece of cake?
3. Maximise Your Revenue
By offering online booking at your holiday business you’re increasing the chances of taking more bookings, more often – whilst still staying in complete control of your numbers. If you’re having to process each booking individually then all that time is wasted… and is time that your customers could be booking spaces at your campsite or caravan park.
4. New Opportunities, New Customers
We understand that you may be unsure about making such a big change to the way your business operates. We also know that many of you have your regular customers, who come back time and again – and you wouldn’t to affect the way they interact with you.
However, despite how reliant you may be on your repeat bookers, there comes a time when you have to look for new customers, if your business is to grow.
By having a campsite or caravan park online booking system in place, you could well find you attract new customers who have previously ruled you out because they simply couldn’t book with you at their convenience.
By offering online booking you could also link up with other third party providers, such as PitchUp, who could synchronise with your system – and then send more bookings your way.
Prices From £20/month
5. It’s more affordable than you might think
If you’re a small campsite, caravan park or even an accommodation provider with just one or two units, you may think online booking is simply going to cost too much. Well, how about if we told you that the price of our own Pitched Booking software starts from just £20/month + VAT with no set-up fee?
We’ve launched a new self-sign-up service for our online booking software where you can get online and start taking bookings in a matter of a few hours. We even offer a FREE 14-day trial of our system to make sure it’s the right fit for your business.
Click the link below to read more about Pitched Booking – and start taking online bookings now so your holiday business doesn’t get left behind.
