What is the Real Impact of Online Booking Systems?

More about the study

Test 1: Advertising an experience with no online booking system but enquiry only

Test 2: Advertising an experience with direct online booking showing the impact of Online Booking System

Summary results of impact of online booking:

1. Both the 'Enquiry only' and the 'Instant Booking' had a similar number of enquiries

2. Enquiry received just 3 bookings (5 people) vs. online booking system of 14 bookings (25 people)

3. Instant booking generated a whopping 400% increase in bookings!

4. Interestingly, there was a high level of conversion from enquiries to bookings in this study. This is at odds to what we see across the rest of our enquiries where there is less than around a 20% conversion. I.e. for every 10 enquiries only 2 bookings are made. This study could have been higher due to quick response rates, lots of available dates to offer to customers and it being a relatively straightforward activity with no accommodation or travel arrangements necessary

Caveats and points to note to our experiment for impact of online booking systems:

• Our study was very limited in exposure and for statistically significant results, we would need a much larger study, across many more experiences, demographics, locations and more. That being said, across our platform of hundreds of experiences, we do see much more sales for bookable dates, but we don't have the specific data to pull although we estimate 75%+ of bookings made on Beyonk are from direct booking rather than enquires.

• The impact of using an online booking system will differ based on the type of business you are, or rather the types of experiences you're selling and who you're main customers are. For example, in general we've seen the older generation are still happy to pick up the phone or email to book a tour, activity or experience. However, the younger generation, much more rarely cannot be bothered to enquire. And if they do, it often doesn't end in a sale as they find an alternative place to book directly. If you're offering much more bespoke trips then enquiries can be suitable. If it's higher frequency trips that take less than a day, this is what really lends itself to online booking systems. Likewise, if its customers you already know, it's often easier to pick up the phone, but for those where you don't yet have the personal connection, selling tickets online can be a way to sign them up before building the connection afterwards

• The audience used in this study was around London. Is there perhaps a greater need for online booking systems around city-folk who are used to greater convenience based on their lives. I.e. where you can get groceries delivered within an hour from Amazon and an Uber taxi can pick you up in less than 3 minutes. Do these big tech companies set expectations higher for convenience and ease-of-use? Perhaps had we done this experiment in a more laid back region picking up the phone and having a chat could have been a more preferred option.

• We should have split this into two webpages, so we could show in Google Analytics the impact directly without having to do a manual measurement (although with phone bookings and enquiries by email, it's inevitable there would always be some manual measurement)

• Enquires and phone bookings ARE NOT DEAD. They still form a very valuable source of sales despite the significant results in this study

Online booking systems are just the beginning

1. Great content - images and copy to make consumers want to book

2. Flexible booking terms, the ability to cancel without getting stung with high deposits

3. The more available dates the better - remember you're trying to make sure customers can find a suitable date for both of you and confirm it right there and then. It could be quite rare to put a single date up each month and for that to match your customers available dates. The more available dates you have, the more direct bookings you'll receive. We'll do a study on this soon to prove the effects

4. Reduce the barriers to your activity - if equipment is needed, offer to provide it. If it's for a very small portion of the population, can you make it accessible to more? If it's in the middle of nowhere, it's going to limit the potential customer base who are willing to travel further. Research by VisitBritian has suggested you reduce your booking potential by 50% if consumers have to travel over 2 hours to get to your activity.

5. Guided walking is a niche in itself. So is paddleboarding and other recreational or leisure activities. The minute you add another theme over the top e.g. mountain walking for city-dwellers that enjoy their toast buttered - that's again, then making the activity even more niche. Niche isn't bad, if you know where to find and target your potential customers. Instead, try making the activity open to a broader audience than a narrower one.

6. Drive sufficient relevant traffic going to your website (industry standard conversion rates sit around 1% (this is highly contextual and contentious). So if you can drive 100 prospective customers to your website, you should be aiming for at least one booking, at least in theory.

7. Where you position your online booking system on your website will have a massive impact to your sales. It needs to be front and centre so your prospective customers have a clear call to action to really make an impact to bookings

8. Measure the data, test, test and test some more. Make sure you keep an eye on all of your stats to constantly improve and fix any issues. The last thing you want is to be advertising a website that's so slow consumers are not waiting for your webpages to load. Keep checking Google Analytics and make sure your website is set up in the best way.