Open Air Business August/September 2018

GLAMPSITES
GUEST COMMENT
GETTY IMAGES
Evening
Bookings
The majority of online glamping bookings are
placed after 8pm reveals Jonathan Knight,
CEO of coolcamping.com
WITH THOUSANDS of glampers
using our online Bedful booking
system each year, we are in an
excellent position to spot trends
in booking behaviours. Our most
recent analysis of visitors in 2017–
18 has revealed that over 40% of
bookings are placed between the
hours of 7pm–11pm, peaking at
nine o’clock at night.
This is no great surprise as night
time bookings reveal the reality
of everyday life – that most of us
are too busy in the day and are
reluctant to interrupt our office
working hours.
The data, taken from our
website’s booking system, Bedful,
highlights the growing trend in
the glamping industry of having a
complete 24-hour presence online,
with a website capable of taking
online bookings during ‘out of
hours’ periods.
While our data shows that
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jonathan Knight is
CEO of coolcamping.
com. Over the last
10 years, the Cool
Camping guidebooks
and website have
been at the forefront
of British camping and
glamping, recognising
small, independent,
special places to stay
that go the extra mile.
The Cool Camping
website’s booking
software – known
independently as
Bedful – allows
businesses to process
bookings on their own
websites as well as
through coolcamping.
com.
bookings usually peak at around
nine o’clock, we still have
customers at one or two in the
morning every night. Some will
be night owls who stay up late to
organise their holidays and others
will be international customers
who are travelling to the UK from
abroad.
A further 3% of bookings were
shown to have been processed
between the late hours of 11pm–
5am.
The results come as we also
see new growth in year-on-year
bookings, with good weather
boosting the 2018 season,
and further growth in online
bookings across the outdoor
accommodation industry.
The expectation of today’s
consumers is that everything is
available online. The Cool Camping
website now has over three million
visitors each year and in April
we launched a
second, luxury
glamping website
– glampingly.
co.uk – to
further tailor our
presence online.
While the new
data suggests
online bookings
remain the growing area for
modern marketing, there’s still a
place for phone-in bookings and
emails however.
Our systems also offer a
dashboard and diary function
where telephone bookings are
completed but the stats show that
late evening is very much a peak
time for booking interest and a
point when consumers, having
had discussions with friends and
family, make their final purchase.
It’s important to be able to take a
booking at that time.
TIPS FOR CAPITALISING
ON EVENING INTEREST
› Ensure online booking is
prominent: Use an online
booking system and ensure
your booking button or calendar
is in a prominent position on
your website. Add calling hours
(such as “from 9am–6pm”) next
to your telephone number if
applicable and prompt people to
make bookings on your website
outside of those hours.
› Target social media for peak
hours: Schedule your important
social media posts and tweets
outside of daily working hours
(such as during lunch breaks
or after 6pm) to maximise their
exposure and hit customers
with your message at the most
relevant time.
› Integrate your systems to
avoid double bookings: Use a
fully integrated booking system,
like Bedful, to ensure third party
websites such as AirBnB, Cool
Camping and Glampingly are all
connected to safeguard against
double bookings while you’re
sleeping.
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