It’s time for this month’s episode of TOP Radio, our monthly travel and technology podcast.  This month we’re talking with Alex Bainbridge from TourCMS about a question that seems to come up over and over again:  does your travel website need online reservations?

Listen Now

You can listen to call now by using the widget available below; the call is just under an hour.

If you’d like to download the call as an MP3 to listen on your iPhone or iPod later, you can get the MP3 here (be sure to right click and choose Save As in your browser as it’s a fairly large file).

Notes from the Call

Here are a few key takeaways from today’s session.  Note that this is not a transcript and has been heavily edited for brevity, so be sure to listen to the call so you don’t miss anything.

Introductory Comment

• The concepts and suggestions in today’s call are generics.  That means they are suggestions, ideas, and examples of how things have or haven’t worked for other people.  But your business is special, so you can’t take any of this advice for face value.  You should consider the content and align it to your own business goals.
• Things to know before even considering this topic for your business:
  • Online Reservations are not a panacea for poor conversions.  In fact they might make them worse.
  • Online Reservations are not a “set it and forget it” technology.
  • You cannot put in online reservations and then remove all other ways for the customer to access you. You must have a way for people get in touch with you.  What if the booking tool is broken?

What ‘Online Reservations’ Is and What It Isn’t

• A booking system is not a replace for removing other ways to take bookings.
• A booking system is not a way to remove all contact with the customer.  You need to make sure that the booking engine you use still has a human in the booking process.
• The booking engine is there to make your business more efficient, not to make your business more automated.
• Depending on the tool and how you’re using analytics, you can glean useful information about where a customer has come from and how they found you.
• Don’t worry too much about booking engines.  If you have a terrible booking engine, but still have a high quality product, then customers will just book with you via phone or email.  (Note how this is very different than major hotel websites, for example, where there are other websites where a customer can book.).
• You don’t have to have a “booking engine” — a transaction or contact for a specific product on a specific day or specific time.  You can just have a “quote request system” or “inquiry system” where the customer is just making contact to express an interest in your product or service.
• Payment processing:  there are multiple options, from taking payment up front to holding the credit card details and then charging the customer only when agreeing to a contract.
• Remove complexity but remember: consider the customer.
• Suggestion is to start with an off the shelf system, as you aren’t having to rebuild the wheel.

Reasons Why Online Availability is Bad (or, Things To Keep In Mind)

• We’re not saying online reservations are bad, just remember a few key things.
• Online booking tools add a cost of doing business; it’s normally not expensive but it is something to remember, depending on what tool a choose.
• A tool changes the adds steps or changes steps or removes steps – remember the customer and make sure you know what you need to be doing.
• If you have a very small booking pool (e.g. very small hotel, or a solo walking tour leader), a booking “wall” might prevent customers from getting to you who others you might be able to satisfy with alternative options that you can’t easily display in your booking tool.  So be mindful of this if you’re very small but nimble.
• If you offer a seasonal offering, make sure that customers know when you’re available.  Don’t let them get all the way into your booking tool to realise you are only open in the summer!
• You need to make sure that the reservation tool is the ‘master’ source of availability information.
• Remember the information required to market a product (what is it, why do you want it) is not the same as what is needed to sell (exact details, timings, rates, etc).  Ask yourself:  what is your website for, marketing or sales or both?
• With a booking tool there is a tendency to act like a “factory” – don’t remove all human interaction!  Keep it positive, simple and understandable.
• Consider your customers arriving to your tool in three states:
  • the busy, harried buyer who just needs to know right now who you are and what you offer
  • the information lover, who wants to know all the details and will linger over everythign
  • and of course, the person who already knows they’re buying with you and are just coming to make the final arrangements
• If you’re sort of a “commodity tour” provider where you just process high volume products with a similar setup every day, then you probably want  a very robust tool.

What is the Value of Having a Suitable Booking Tool or Online Reservations

• For people who have a high volume of bookings, especially when you get lots of bookings that you can’t even service, a tool does provide a way to filter these out.
• A tool can provide a way to remove friction from the process; when they’ve made a decision they’re ready to book, they can!
• You want to aim for 50%+ of bookings taken online; keeps your staff focussed on more value-added activities.  Software can help you double or triple bookings without massive increases in staff.

How To Choose?

• Always start off small, near the simple end of functionality (e.g. ‘enquiry form’).  Get in and get trading.
• Phases of implementation:
  • Just using the tool to manage bookings once you’ve received them
  • Integrate a tool into your contact form or enquiry form so a customer record is created when they get in touch
  • Taking online bookings but only “quote requests”
  • Lastly, fully functional system with transaction requests taken online
• If you sell a lot of different types of tours, you probably need a more complex support tool.  If you just have one or two options, you don’t need all the bells and whistles.
• It’s not usually about turnover, nor about staff – it’s mostly about the number of bookings where you fall in the complexity scale.
• Buy a system that permits you to continue to work with your agents and partners and suppliers, and make sure your system allows you to just make quotes.
• Again, it all comes back to your customer:  who are they and what are their needs?  Be sure your online presence meets that.

Parting thought:  If you build it, they won’t come.  Regardless of whether you do or don’t take online reservations, if you don’t have enough sales, it isn’t because of our website, it’s because of your marketing.

Thanks to Alex for joining us!  Learn more about Alex by visiting the TourCMS website or their free online forum, Small Fish Big Ocean.