 |
Internet Solutions Star-trans Article |
|
| |
Marina Dockage Magazine - February 2005
Marinas join autos, airlines and hotels in setting up online reservations
By Diane Lake
As computer onwers and Internet users become more and more savvy, an increasing number of them are booking all their travel and vacation reservations online. Hotels airlines, and car rental compaines have offered online booking to customers for several years. Finally, online booking software is becoming available to handle the complexities of resort stlye marina reservations, and the result is that the marina industry is catching up with the trend toward fully functional, user-friendly online booking.
Online reservation systems bring many satisfied customers to marinas, because customers can make reservations online right from their own computer. This way of doing business not only saves time and money, but also gives the smaller purveyor a large look and, in this business, that's important.
Today's Internet customers want more than just information and a reservation request form from a marina's web site. They want to do real business with the marina, online, at their convenience. Online booking makes this happen and is the key to tapping into the revenue-generating capabilites of the Internet.
Although online reservations for hotels, airlines, and cars have been available for years, online booking software for marinas has been slow to evolve because of the complexity of the marina reservation process. Even now, marinas have many questions about online booking services and software.
What is online booking and why do marinas need it?
For marinas, an online booking capablity is the final step to giving their online customers what they want- the ability to make a reservation with a marina at their convenience.
Today, many marina web sites provide customers with information about their facility and get them excited about the property. But what options does the web site offer to the user who wants to make a reservation?
Most web sites have a number to call, but what if the marina's office hours don't coincide with the customer's? Will customers wait and keep trying to call? Not likely!
Or maybe the web site has a reservation request form for users to fill out. This is a step in the right direction, because it lets customers communicate their desire to make a reservation directly to the marina/resort, provided the dates and other equipment and accommodations they want are available. But in the end, reservation request forms are just requests for more information, and only a small percentage turn into reservations.
With online booking software, however, customers do their own checking for availability and pricing, and make their own reservations. The marina only sees the end result-the reservation- without any staff time being spent on it. Online booking software does the same job as the marina management software the reservation staff uses to record reservations, but it lets customers make the booking online at their convenience.
"As a small company, online booking has given us all the features that large companies can offer their customers. We now offer our customers the convenience of booking online. Giving our customers the ability to book online in the convenience of their homes has generated more sales for our company at a nominal cost," says Shanna McCracken, owner of Antlers Resort & Marina, Lake Shasta, California.
What are the complexities of marina and resort reservations that online booking software needs to solve?
Marina/resorts, such as Antlers Resort and Marina and the marinas on Lake Powell in Arizona, often offer customers more than just a slip rental. They have multiple types of rental inventory and complex pricing and availability rules.
One marina/resort may have transient slips that rent by the night, powerboats that rent by the day or hour, houseboats that rent only for 3, 4, or 7 day stays, with a damage deposit that must be collected at the time of reservation, and cabins that rent by the night or week. Another marina/resort may price transient slips based on the length of the boat. Still another may rent houseboats according to a schedule that keeps a steady number arriving and departing.
Online booking software for marinas must be smart enough to accommodate many types of pricing and availablity rules and many types of rental equipment. It cannot assume that all marinas rent transient slips by the night, or that all marinas rent powerboats by the day.
How does the marina find the right online booking software for its operation?
Once a marina/resort has found a company that provides online booking or reservation software, marinas should evaluate the software to be sure it can accommodate the way the specific marina does business. The rule of thumb is that marinas shouldn't change the way they do business to accommodate the online reservation system. For example, if a marina and resort rents houseboats by the day, rather than by the night, or only for 3-, 4-, or 7-day stays, it should be sure the software can do the same things. If the marina also rents powerboats, personal watercraft, and slips, the software should allow customers to reserve any or all of them.
The other important criterion for the software is ease of use. The online booking software must be able to guide the customer quickly and easily through the booking process. Customers should be able to go to the marina/resort web site, select what they want to reserve, see if it is available, find out how much it costs, and make their online reservation by entering their payment and customer information.
What is the cost of online booking software?
With most online software, the marina does not have to install, back up, or upgrade software. The marina and its customers only need access to the Internet to take advantage of the software.
What about pricing? The most common pricing methods for Internet software are pay-as-you-go methods, because there is nothing to actually purchase. One pay-as-you-go method, especially prevalent with reservation software, is the transaction fee method. It allows small operators to compete on the same level as large operations, because they only pay if customers make reservations. If a reservation is made, a fee is assessed.
Another pay-as-you-go method is the subsciption method, whereby the marina pays monthly or yearly fees to the software company for acess to system. Either method is good news for small operators, who can give their customers the same functionality available to large operations without the big price tag.
Does online booking require any more staff?
Online booking does not require more staff. In fact, online booking may actually reduce staff. How? Because customers do their own research on pricing and availability rather than calling the resevation staff. There is no need for staff time to be spent on the transaction process. The ease of making reservations with online booking literally can turn that request form into an online sale. It is a simple process that takes minutes to make thousands of dollars, and it requires no staff and no paperwork.
How do marinas get started?
Here's a pracitical checklist of the steps involed in getting your marina started with online booking:
Find the right software:
- Get recommendations from other marinas that have online booking.
- Find them through your own contacts or on the Internet.
- Seek recommendations from your in-house marina management software company.
- Research marina magazines, especially buyer's gudies and software reviews.
- Use the Internet search engines.
- Find out what is involved to set up and maintain the system.
- Be sure training is included.
- Make sure the software will accommodate your pricing and availability rules.
- Find out how you are notified when a reservation is made and what to do once you are notified.
- Set up the rental system so that customers can use it. Depending on the software and the marina's rentals, this process is probably very similar to setting up an inventory in a marina management system, so the marina should expect to follow similar steps to descibe its offerings, pricing, and availability rules.
- In descibing a marina/resort's rental inventory, the marina should remember that the customer is not familiar with the marina's codes and naming methods and must understand what they are renting from your desciption.
- This generally requires the web site designers update the marina/resort's web site with links to the online booking software so that customers can book online directly from the website. The online booking software company should provide the links to the marina/resort's web site page.
- Use the method provided by the software provider to retrieve and process reservations made online by customers.
Diane Lake is the president of Star-Trans, Phoenix, Arizona, developers of the Star-Trans Online Booking System. She can be reached at 800-476-4654 x709, or by e-mail at: lakedl@star-trans.com.
For more information visit our website at www.star-trans.com or call us at (1-800-476-4654).
Back to Top
