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1. Why online availability and booking is vital
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Unforeseen visitors
Help manage visitors who arrive without a booking. Think of spur of the moment visits whose numbers you cannot control.
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Crowd control
- It's a tool to control the area / radius where visitors come from. For example, within X miles of the visitor attraction, or within certain postcodes
- Manage visitor flow around the attraction / experience in a controlled and safe manner
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Information
Ensure that visitors are aware of all terms and conditions at the time of booking.
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Special features
- Set timeslots for visits by date and time
- Set durations for each visit
- Support contactless payment
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Record keeping
Maintain records of visitor numbers and demand (you will have to base staffing requirements on both).
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Preparation
Put arrival checks / procedures in place as appropriate. Think of ticket scanning devices, queueing etiquette and staffing requirements.
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Continued contact
Maintain contact with customers post-visit and request feedback as necessary.
2. How do I choose an online booking system?
Check which online booking system best meets your business requirements.
We don’t endorse or recommend any system over another. The following list represents only a small fraction of booking systems available. The ones included have Scottish clients or account managers working in Scotland.
Contact details
Website: www.theaccessgroup.com/visitor-management-system
Key contact: Matt Edwards
Telephone: 07876 874967
Email: matt.edwards@theaccessgroup.com
Suitability
All forms of attractions and tours
Functionality
Access Gamma has a wide range of features including:
- Admissions and ticketing (capacity and timed based)
- Gift Aid options
- Retail and catering EPOS with stock management
- Bookings and event management
- Membership
- Mail order
- Various web interfaces (including hosted web ticketing)
Free attraction options and details
By arrangement
Bespoke booking options
Incorporates new business rules/logic around locality and postcodes
Download the free post-lockdown operations planning guide at pages.theaccessgroup.com/hospitality-checklist
Pricing model
Various pricing models available
Guest payment options
Full payment can be made online or via EPOS (integrated Chip and Pin or PDQ)
Payment gateway compatibility
Compatible with many leading payment gateways including WorldPay/VeriFone and SagePay
Contact details
Website: www.appointedd.com
Key contact: Madeline Fish, Product Solutions Executive
Email: maddy@appointedd.com
Suitability
Tours, attractions, activities and events
Functionality
- Online booking tools for your website, social media pages or emails
- Automated confirmations, reminders, and follow-ups sent via email and/or SMS
- Ticket-type services with multiple pricing options
- Covid-secure features including capacity management and sanitisation buffers
- CRM for storing customer details and booking notes. Customisable questions within the booking flow
- Integration with many partners including video conferencing software, Zoom for virtual services
- Online payments within booking flow - take deposits or payments in full via Stripe, Square or Braintree
- Booking status feature to mark customers as arrived, completed or no-shows
- Insightful business reports that are downloadable via CSV
- 24/7 support and free system setup calls
Free attraction options and details
The same functionality applies as above. For attractions, tours or activities that are free of charge, you can set the price to £0 and no payment will be taken at the time of booking. If you wish, you can set a small price to act as a booking fee. Please note: Appointedd does not take booking fees (see pricing model section).
Bespoke booking options
Appointedd is an evergreen solution which means all customers have access to all features. In light of COVID-19, this includes:
- Capacity Flex to manage the number of customers you can welcome at any one time
- Automatic buffers to add additional time before and/or after the booking for sanitation purposes
- Virtual capabilities with our seamless Zoom integration. This allows activities to continue from the comfort of your customer’s homes
Additionally, enterprise organisations can benefit from a bespoke setup service. This includes:
- Heavily branded booking tools with a map and location search field
- A dedicated account manager who will configure your accounts and offer full support at each stage
Pricing model
Standard pricing is £15 per month or £144 per year, per bookable calendar. For businesses with more than 20 bookable calendars, they offer bespoke pricing. They do not charge a fee per booking and do not take a percentage of the transaction fees. The transaction fee will come directly from the payment provider that you choose to use.
Guest payment options
Online with credit/debit card, pay upon arrival in card or cash. They work with Epos Now POS and Square POS if you’d like to take payment via a till.
Payment gateway compatibility
Stripe, Square and Braintree
Contact details
Website: www.beyonk.com
Phone number: 08009 804517
Email for new businesses: sales@beyonk.com
Email for existing businesses: support@beyonk.com
Suitability
Experience providers and attractions
Functionality
Beyonk offers:
- User-friendly systems
- Auto emails
- Checkout questions
- Staff scheduling
- Easy bookings management
- Resource management
- Messaging
- Pricing variations
- Booking form integrated to website
- Simple integration
- Timeslots
- Gift vouchers
- Discount codes
Pricing model
4% booking fee (+VAT and payment processing fees).
Guest payment options
Option to pass booking fee onto the customer.
Payment gateway compatibility
Stripe Express
Contact details
Website: www.bokun.io
Key contact: Sam Jefferies, Growth Marketer
Email: scotland@bokun.io
Suitability
Tours, attractions and activities
Functionality
Bokun offers:
- Website builder with ecommerce functionality
- Online booking engine widgets which can be added to your website to make it bookable
- A large OTA distribution network and exclusive B2B marketplace. You can use it to sell your tours through thousands of different distribution channels
- Full reporting functionality
Free attraction options and details
You can set the price of a free attraction to £0 and it will transact with no payment methods attached to the checkout process. Any reservation made non-direct is 0% commission owed to Bokun.
To avoid no-shows, using a payment provider Bokun allows you to receive payment. This is either in a percentage or full payment in advance during the checkout process. You can choose from paying upon arrival or accepting payment at the time of booking.
Bespoke booking options
- Capacity limits
- Fixed start time slots
- No overlapping tours with time allotments
- Required terms and conditions for postal code requirements and radius
- Payment required at time of booking or a deposit
Pricing model
1.5% service for direct online bookings only + $49 per month
Guest payment options
Credit card, pay upon arrival and cash
Payment gateway compatibility
Trust My Travel, Pay Pal, Stripe, Braintree, and many more - access the full list of payment providers
Contact details
Website: www.bookinghound.com
Key contact: Mike Cohen, Managing Director
Email: letstalk@bookinghound.com
Telephone: 0208 731 4343
Suitability
Tours, activities, experiences and attractions
Functionality
- Fully featured 24/7 centralised booking system
- Integrated Payment Processing Solution with options for full or part payment when booking
- Take bookings directly via a website or office/call centre
- Offer different types of bulk discounts and/or flexible pricing for different days of the week and/or group sizes
- Signed online waivers, questionaires and surveys
- Sell via resellers and affiliates
- Sell and redeem different types of gift vouchers
- Create and redeem promotion codes as well as sell your extras e.g. lunch
- Customisable registration forms - ask the questions you want answered as part of the booking process
- Extensive reporting with over 70 different reports available
Free attraction options and details
Free ticket options are available as standard with the same functionality as paid bookings
Bespoke booking options
- Extensive time slot and capacity management and reporting features
- Track and Trace data capture
- QR code scan upon attendee arrival
- Payments in advance of attendance
- Customer portal for optional deferred payments, customer rebooking or cancellations
Pricing model
Usage charge options include free whereby the charge is passed to the guest to monthly usage plans. These are charged according to the volume of bookings processed starting from £25 + VAT per month. No setup fee.
Guest payment options
Credit Card, Debit Card, Invoice, PDQ, Paypal and BookingHound gift vouchers
Payment gateway compatability
Stripe and PayPal
Contact details
Website: www.checkfront.com
Email: sales@checkfront.com
Suitability
Tours, activities, rentals, attractions, accommodation and adventure parks
Functionality
- Multi-vertical packages
- Multi-day/night or timeslot bookings
- Guest notifications via email or SMS
- Scheduled reminders
- Discount/coupon management
- Gift certificates
- Digital waiver documents
- Website builder
- Mobile app
- Integrations
Free attraction options and details
Free products can be set up and offered
Bespoke booking options
Overall capacity can be controlled across multiple products
Pricing model
Annual or monthly flat rate, no hidden fees. Flexible pricing for businesses of all sizes. Flex Plan available - a newly added 'per booking', commission-based plan. Full details of pricing models.
Guest payment options
Credit card, PayPal, gift certificate, voucher/discount code. Offline POS options: cash, bank transfer, cheque.
E-commerce settings:
- Full payment online
- Deposit/full payment
- Book now and pay later
- Free product/reservations only
Payment gateway options
Stripe, PayPal,Square, Authorize.net, Braintree, NMI and more. Full details of payment gateway options.
Contact details
Website: www.digitickets.co.uk
Email: info@digitickets.co.uk
Telephone: 01392 826980
Suitability
Attractions, tours, festivals, party bookings and events
Functionality
- Online booking
- Limiting visitor numbers
- Timed ticketing
- Memberships, gift vouchers and Gift Aid
- CRM functionality (data collection)
- Automatic emailing system e.g. to warn visitors about your social distancing rules before the visitor arrives
Free attraction options and details
By arrangement
Bespoke booking options
Enabling limited capacity options and controlling how many visitors the attraction has on site at certain times.
Pricing model
Set-up fee of £1,950 which includes:
- Full ticketing and event set up
- One full-day onsite training
- Design and create your theme
- Full seven days support
- Lifetime upgrades
- Payment gateway integration
- An account manager who will be your main point of contact
There are no renewal or upgrade fees. After the set-up fee there are three options available based on tickets sold:
- A fixed fee per ticket (between 20p and 50p)
- A fixed fee per transaction (between £1.50 and 50p)
- A % of the transaction value (between 3 - 5%)
Guest payment options
Debit, credit, invoice, cheque and DigiTickets Gift Voucher
Payment gateway compatability
DigiTickets integrates with 35 payment gateways including:
- Stripe
- Worldpay
- Sage Pay
- PayPal
- First Data
- Global Irish
- Payment Express
- Paymentsense
- Verifone
Contact details
Website: https://fareharbor.com/gb/
Key contact: Tyler Sindel, Enterprise Strategic Partnerships Manager
Email: tyler.sindel@fareharbor.com
Telephone: +31 20 245 7322
Suitability
Tours, activities and attractions
Functionality
Features include, but are not limited to:
- Flexible timed ticketing
- Real-time capacity control and insight
- QR code scanning for contactless entry
- Automated confirmation, reminder, and follow-up emails
- Fully mobile optimised
- Customisable booking process including dropdowns, checkboxes and warning labels
- Online payments in full via credit card, debit card, SOFORT, IDEAL and PayPal
- Advanced reporting
- Integration with 100+ OTAs such as TripAdvisor, Expedia and Get Your Guide,. There are also integrations with Facebook and Google Analytics
- Seating charts and automated seat assignment for venues, boat, trains, or any other seat assignment needs
- 24/7 Support
- Free full service setup, training and account management
Free attraction options and details
Same functionality as paid attractions
Bespoke booking options
FareHarbor works with each client to determine their specific needs and alter the system to their desires. In the wake of COVID-19, this may include:
- Per booking limit on number of guests
- Per time slot limit on guests
- Updating capacity and terms as policies change
- Requiring postcode entry during booking and displaying alerts for clients outside permitted postcodes
- QR scanning for contactless entry
- Mobile solution that ensures walk-up customers can easily book online upon arrival to avoid cash payments
- In-system messaging to alert customers when their time at the attraction is up
- Capacity reporting and management
- Health and safety policy displayed throughout booking process and customer communication
Pricing model
Free attractions: various pricing models to be discussed with each attraction.
Paid attractions: credit card processing rate of 2.2% + 0.30 per transaction. FareHarbor charges a small service fee to the online customer which is not paid for by the attraction.
OTA Bookings and back-office/offline bookings are free.
Guest payment options
Credit Card, Debit Card, SOFORT, IDEAL and PayPal
Payment gateway compatibility
Stripe
Contact details
Website: www.fusemetrix.com
Key contact: Callum Knight
Telephone: 07469872334
Email: cknight@fusemetrix.com
Suitability
Suitable for all types of attractions from single site soft play centres to large scale visitor attractions.
Functionality
- Online booking
- Integrated POS
- Time & capacity managed ticketing
- CRM
- Full reporting suite
- Automated email marketing tool
- Integrated waivers
- Memberships including monthly Direct Debit integration
- Food & beverage solution including online ordering
- Full retail system including stock management
- Accommodation bookings
- OTA integration for direct sales through Trip Advisor & Viator
- HR
- Full accounts system
- 24/7 Support
Free attraction options and details
Free products can be set up and offered.
Bespoke booking options
The FuseMetrix platform is continuously being developed. This has lead to a number of new features being developed following the COVID-19 pandemic including:
- COVID-secure booking capacities limiting sessions by number of people, members or bookings
- Bulk postponement features to transfer entire sessions. Or days to alternative dates or activities on account
- Online food ordering with either table service or a collection point to limit human interaction and queueing
Do you have any other specific needs? FuseMetrix are also open to bespoke development for customers.
Pricing model
Small implementation fee followed by a flat monthly license fee with no booking or transaction fees.
Guest payment options
Credit Card, Debit Card, Vouchers, Telephone Payments, Invoice, Deposits and Cash through the POS.
Payment gateway compatability
FuseMetrix integrates with a wide a range of payment gateways including Windcave, World Pay, Payment Sense, Stripe etc.
Contact details
Website: https://futureticketing.ie/
Key contact: Ronan Burns, Business Development Manager
Suitability
- Single day events - shows or annual passes
- Daily events, weekly events, multiday events, timeslot event. Think of: general admission or admission timeslots
- Seasonal events. Think of: Santa or summer camps
Booking Model
- Online cloud based ticketing and booking system, capacity management and access control solution
- Ability to provide full solution through Open rest API
Functionality
Event types:
- Daily events
- Timeslot events - running daily, weekly or monthly
- One-off events
- Free admission events
- Registration events
Ticket types:
- Flexi / open tickets
- Membership
- General admission
- Summer camps
- Season ticket types
- Bundled family tickets
- Multiple tickets
- Multi-day events
Guest communications:
- Integrations with CRM systems
- Pre and post event emails
- Event specific confirmation emails
- Opt-in reporting
Ticketing options:
- Membership cards
- E-tickets
- Google wallet
- Printed tickets
- Wristbands
- External barcodes
- Mobile ticketing
Access control:
- Live scanning reporting
- Integrations with turnstiles
- Handheld scanners - operated on 3G/4G
- Download
- Wi-Fi
Capacity management:
- Capacity by ticket type, event, timeslot, ticket grouping
Upselling:
- Voucher codes
- Online gift vouchers
- Suggested products
- Advanced email
Free attraction options and details
Ability to capture and manage data on GDPR compliant cloud based ticketing provider. This includes additional information of customers.
Access to full Future Ticketing system.
Bespoke booking options
- Advanced booking system - allow customer to purchase in advance
- Timed entry - through timeslots and scanner times
- Additional fields collect information such as name, postcode email of all ticket buyers for contact tracing. Create and ask other questions for events such as Santa or Easter
- Flexible payment options for users and customers
- Payment direct to client bank account
- Communications: bespoke scheduled emails, terms and conditions by event or ticket type
- Seating plan: COVID rule sets to allow spacing between groups on tables etc.
Pricing model
Various options available include but not limited to:
- Commission only
- Annual fee
- Zero business cost (visitor chargeable)
Guest payment options
- Online Payment in full
- Deposit and pay now link
- Gift voucher and promocode redemption
- Back end users can process payments through:
- Cash
- Card
- Invoice
- Pay on arrival
- Partial payments
- Deposits
- Prepaid
- Voucher
Payment gateway compatibility
- Stripe
- Global Payments (formerly Realex)
- Opayo (formerly Sage pay)
- Authipay
- WorldNet
- Card stream
- FT Payments
- Citipay
- Sporting Pay
Contact details
Website: www.gatewayticketing.co.uk
Key contact: Andy Povey, Managing Director
Email: apovey@gatewayticketing.co.uk
Suitability
Tours, activities and attractions
Functionality
- Integration into OTA market including TripAdvisor, GetYourGuide, Viator and Expedia
- Timed and capacity controlled bookings
- Attendance scanning - in and out controlling total people on site
- Fully integrated CRM if required
- Membership options
- Loyalty schemes
- Retail and catering options
- Automated pre and post visit surveys/joining instructions
- Bulk refunds
- Online gift vouchers (for sale and/or in place of refunds)
Free attraction options and details
Free tickets/bookings are fully supported
Bespoke booking options
Timed/capacity controlled bookings to control volumes, in and out scanning to control numbers of people within venue
Pricing model
Booking fees that can be passed onto the guest
Guest payment options
Card, PayPal, Direct Debit (for memberships/recurring donations)
Payment gateway compatibility
Worldpay, Global Payments, Barclaycard, PayPal
Contact details
Website: www.palisis.com / www.tourcms.com
Key contact: Gallen Hawkins, Business Development Manager (UK & Ireland)
Email: gallen.hawkins@palisis.com
Suitability
Tours
- Day tours
- Walking tours
- Food and drink tours
- Hop on, hop off tours
Transportation
- Airport shuttles
- Intercity buses
- Coach transport
Attractions
- Art galleries and museums
- Exhibitions
- Heritage sites
- Botanical gardens and zoos
- Historical trains and ships
- Historic houses and castles
- Viewpoints
Functionality
Online Shop
- Simple integration (direct link/iframe) or standalone website
- Highly customisable, white-labelled booking engine
- Dynamic, optimised for mobile
- PDF ticket sent to customer
- Example: https://examplewebshoppalisis.palisis.com/
Box Office
- Take bookings over the phone with card payment
- Tickets sent directly to customer's email address
Validation
- Validate ticket QR codes with scanning devices or Android device (please enquire for pricing)
Backoffice
Additional functionalities (especially post-COVID):
- Real-time, dynamic reporting and data export
- Configure products, timetables, prices and discounts
- All-in-one handheld ticketing devices (including validation and card payments)
- Fixed Point of Sale (ticketing, payments, validation)
- Local partnering/agent solutions (live availability, commission tracking)
- Channel management - live connection to all major online travel agents (please enquire for pricing)
Free attraction options and details
- Pass booking and card processing fee directly to customer
- Accept various levels of donation per customer (e.g. £2, £5, £10)
- Standalone website if needed
Bespoke booking options
- Implement booking timeslots with limited capacity
- Limit booking group size
- Bundles/combos - multi-component tours with timeslots
- Additional information on social distancing guidelines during booking process and confirmation email
- Checkbox for customers to accept social distancing guidelines before checkout
- Insert additional customer data fields (e.g. postcode)
Example: https://examplewebshoppalisis.palisis.com/
Pricing model
Paid tours and attractions:
- Set up and half day remote education - €600
- Per transaction fee - online (2.9%)
- Per transaction free - box office (2.9%)
Free tours and attractions:
- Set up and half day remote education - €600
- Standard price - online (£1 per transaction)
- Standard price - box office (£1 per transaction)
Volume discounts negotiable
*Does not include credit card processing fee
Guest payment options
- Credit/debit card
- PayPal
- Telephone order (pay by card over the phone)
Payment gateway compatability
Adyen, Stripe, PayPal, TrustMyTravel
Contact details
Website: www.regiondo.com
Key contact: Genevieve Smith
Telephone: 01224 003606
Email: genevieve.smith@regiondo.com
Suitability
Guided tours, attractions, indoor/outdoor activities, workshops & classes, water sports, group tours, escape rooms, museums, biking tours.
Functionality
- Online Ticket Store
- Facebook Ticket Store
- POS Solution
- Gift vouchers
- Calendar Synchronisation
- Coupon codes & Promotions
- Sell Add-Ons
- TripAdvisor Review Express
- Resource Manager
- Customer Database
- Custom Emails
- Individual Offers
- Multiple Languages
- Automated Payment Gateway
- Channel Manager
- Google Tag Manager
- Analytics
- Individual Offers
- API Access
- Zapier Integration
Free attraction options and details
Inventory / upsell options.
Bespoke booking options
Customer communications and ticket shops can be easily customised. Do so to deliver bespoke information and messages regarding the operator and the activity/tour. Inventory option can all for group limits to be managed.
Pricing model
Monthly Subscription, Transaction fee.
Guest payment options
The following payment options are suported:
- Debit Card Payment
- Credit Card
- PayPal
- SOFORT Banking
- Giropay
- iDEAL
- Bancontact
- Invoice
- AliPay
Payment gateway options
- Stripe
Contact details
Website: www.rezgo.com
Telephone: +353 51 347204 (Ireland)
Email: support@rezgo.com
Functionality
- Live online availability and real-time booking confirmations
- A "Book Now" button for your website and a variety of options for embedding the system on the website
- Options to support a variety of ticket/pricing models including free entrance, safety deposits & packages
- Cloud-based updates i.e. you should be able to update availability and pricing remotely
- Booking functionality for social media platforms
- Channel management functionality that enables distribution to online travel agent (OTA) websites such as Tripadvisor and GetYourGuide
- Integration with Google Things To Do
- Options to add "extras" to the booking e.g. upgrades, cafe vouchers & equipment
- A user-friendly interface with minimal steps to complete the booking process
- Compatibility with a variety of payment gateway solutions
- Cash payment compatibility
- Multi-device compatibility e.g. desktop, tablet & mobile bookings
- CRM system
- Integrations with email marketing software
- 20/5 client support
- Off-line booking management e.g. telephone bookings/walk-ins without a booking
- Resource management e.g. staff rotas & equipment rosters
- Paperless tickets
- Ticket / QR code scanners
- Compatibility with online reputation management platforms e.g. Tripadvisor
- Automated visitor communications e.g. post visit to request a review
- Multi-user account features & logins
- Staff training & support
- Branded messaging and user interface
- Full visitor management including cancellations, amendments, and additional charges
- SMS / WhatsApp communication functionality
- Full reporting functionality including page analytics and reports on successful, cancelled, and failed bookings
- Alternatives in case of no ticket availability
- Able to handle promo codes / gift vouchers
- PCI-DSS compliant and data transferred securely e.g. https
- Business terms and conditions applied to all bookings
- Integration with on-site EPOS machines/tills
- Regular repayments from booking system to business e.g. daily or weekly
- Food & beverage / retail purchases
- B2B options e.g. agent logins & commission calculators
Preferred payment terms
- Setup fee
- Commission only
- Credit / debit card processing fee
- Annual fee
- Zero business cost (visitor chargeable)
Customer & staff safety options
- Customer warning messages during booking process e.g. around COVID-19 restrictions, closed exhibits or queueing procedures
- Restricted timeslot / ticket options
- Contactless entry
Contact details
Website: www.toristy.com
Key contact: Steve Jackson, Head of Sales EMEA
Email: steve.jackson@toristy.com
Suitability
Attractions/events, tours, activities, rentals, accommodation, adventure parks/farms, charters
Functionality
- Website builder with ecommerce
- Online widgets for existing websites to make it bookable
- Sales distribution via OTAs e.g. Reserve with Google
- Distribution via channels in your destination (rail, ferries, hotels)
- Multi-day packages
- Automated (supplier branded) guest notifications and receipt
- Content integrations to 300 OTAs
- Fully mobile optimised
Free attraction options and details
Free attraction offer works with one of our paid plans. 0% paid to Toristy, reservation is booked into the calendar to avoid overlaps.
Bespoke booking options
- Capacity limits
- Fixed start and end times
- Payment taken when booking made
- Syncs with OTA bookings
- Custom limits on times/numbers of guests
Pricing model
- Toristy either takes a 2.9% commission or €59 – €299 per month depending on the number of products and version of the website builder
- Annual or monthly flat rate on subscriptions
Guest payment options
- Credit card
Payment gateway compatibility
- Stripe
- TrustMyTravel
- PayPal
Contact details
Website: www.trekksoft.com
Key contact: Noemi Oreglia,Business Development Manager
Email: noemi@trekksoft.com
Contact page: https://hubs.ly/H0qsCz60
Suitability
Attractions, tours and activities
Functionality
- Collection and management of guest information
- Automation of guest communication
- Fast and easy ticket redemption with QR code scan
- Booking management for sales made on the website, by phone, in-person, or through agents and OTAs
- Integrated payment gateway with TrekkPay
Free attraction options and details
For free tickets sold online, there will be no commission charged. For free tickets sold on spot, there will be fixed value charged per booking. Option for free attractions available to add a booking fee to be covered by the final customer.
Bespoke booking options
- Timed slots for visits and post-visit cleaning
- Capacity control options
- Possibility to sell skip the line tickets
- Customers can be informed about check-in procedures and timings
- Possibility to offer visits to specific rooms/areas by sharing the capacity among different tours
Pricing model
No subscription fee
Commissions vary according to the channel where the booking is made from:
-
Offline booking fee: 0.55 euro
-
OTA booking fee: 2.5%
- Offline booking fee (on spot, from B2B resellers): €0.30/booking
Guest payment options
- Reservation only
- Down payment
- Online payment
Payment gateway compatibility
- Trekkpay (Visa, Mastercard, Maestro, Discover, Diners, Amex, Apple Pay, Sepa Direct Debit, Alipay, Sofort, iDeal)
- Stripe
- PayPal
3. Case studies of businesses who have utilised online booking systems
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The Scottish Crannog Centre and FareHarbor
The Scottish Crannog Centre is a living history museum at Kenmore, Perthshire. Customers who booked and paid at the attraction made most bookings before the outbreak of coronavirus (COVID-19). The pandemic necessitated the need for the business to be able to manage (and limit) capacity.
Glasgow Life and Tessitura
Coronavirus (COVID-19) resulted in the closure of all Glasgow Life venues and visitor attractions. This made an online booking system was essential to reopen attractions and venues.
Cluny Activities and BookingHound
Cluny Activities used a booking system that let them change how many households can book one slot at the one time. During the pandemic, it ensured adherence to all government track and trace procedures. From 2020, online booking has become essential and online sales have risen exponentially as a result.
4. A procurement checklist for booking systems
Browse booking systems
Please make a note of everything you need from a booking system, using our checklist.
-
1
Find out:
- Where your current bookings come from
- What the required effort will be
- If there are any financial costs such as a commission
- What each booking costs. Think of staff members involved, time to process each booking, advertising / marketing costs
- If the cost of bookings will change when people book online
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2
Carry out thorough research into the options available:
- Look at similar business’ websites
- Act as a potential visitor
- Check how easy / difficult it is to book using potential booking systems
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3
Use Capterra
Capterra is a useful source of information on booking systems. Plus, it contains lots of customer reviews. You can use it alongside your online booking system's details.
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4
Create a shortlist
Create a shortlist of your top five solutions and then do some more research. It may be useful to speak to other similar businesses at this point. Ask them about their experiences of using a specific booking system.
Decide on a booking system
Once you've got a good idea of what's on offer, you can decide which booking system is right for you.
-
1
Contact suppliers
Speak to each of your shortlisted booking systems and negotiate rates / prices. They may have special offers aimed at businesses in particular areas or for specific business types.
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2
Have a test drive
Some suppliers offer free trials which can help ease anxiety and make the switch a bit easier. At first, you may wish to keep things simple with only one or two booking options. For example, don't use any complex packages / multi-ticket options until you’re more confident with the system.
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3
Make your decission
Make your decision and select a booking system. It’s always easiest if you change to a new system outside the main visitor season so plan accordingly. Ensure you communicate the changes to all staff members especially those who you will expected to use the new system. Organise staff training sessions with your selected supplier.
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4
Read the fine print
As part of the sign-up process, ensure that you’re happy with the supplier terms and conditions. Think about stuff like contract renewal, cancellation policy and payment terms.
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5
Review your system
Reassess your choice regularly (at least annually) to ensure that:
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You’re getting value for money
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You’re receiving an appropriate level of customer support
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There are no solutions available more suited to your requirements
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5. Which online booking system is most suitable for my business?
Different online booking systems offer different functionality. It’s important to select the booking system which best matches your business needs.
Download and use our "Functionality for booking systems' tables to:
- Assess your business requirements
- Identify which system is most suitable for you
Functionality for booking systems
Published April 2023
Interactive checklist to identify which system is most suitable for your business