Product Brochure

Bookings-Tracker is an advanced web management system designed to balance sensitive tourism experiences with sustainable environmental controls.

Benefits

  • Advanced management system
  • Easy to use web-based tool
  • Advanced triple bottom line management
  • Dynamic calendar display
  • Peak load indicators
  • Carrying capacity management
  • Full electronic commerce
  • Financial system interface
  • Multiple product set management
  • Advanced reporting
  • ‘Software as a service’ capable
  • Web services compliant

Dynamic Calendar Display

Bookings-Tracker provides a dynamic calendar interface which combines the online booking facilitation with a display of the current available spaces for each day.  It provides the user with choices to view and edit online.  It provides quota control on booking reservations to guarantee a better tourism experience for tourists and minimise the impacts on the environment.

Peak Load Indicators

To avoid overcrowding at peak times, Bookings-Tacker indicates the available spaces on the experience at a given time.  It is the latest generation of customer service and support systems, which provide real-time information specifically tailored to customers’ needs.  Bookings-Tracker increases service response and engagement during peak times, improving customer-employee satisfaction.

Interactive Booking Method

Bookings-Tracker provides a revolutionary interactive online booking method by collecting information on:

  • Party size
  • Departure date
  • Other relevant capacity details
  • Merchandise
  • Other required functions

For increased freedom of choice and tailoring to individual needs, it ensures you provide the most relevant and useful information to your customers.

Electronic Commerce

Bookings-Tracker provides the following e-commerce functions:

  • Book by selecting particular available date from Calendar and tailoring needs information
  • Enter the detailed personal information and booking information
  • Indicate quote on interface immediately for the customer and/or send to customer’s e-mail
  • Select terms and conditions agreement
  • Provide a security online payment system for instant payment
  • Provide a detailed booking receipt

Bookings-Tracker reduces time and cost by eliminating the need to fill out request forms and make appointments, and also enhances service delivery and improves satisfaction and retention.

Multifunctional Booking Support

Pre-booking and post-booking support, which matches service capacity to service demands is provided by Bookings-Tracker.  The customer can make a new booking and view an existing booking or quote.

Easy to Use

Customers spend less time booking their trip and more time enjoying their visit by engaging with a simple and user-friendly interface.  Bookings-Tracker is easy to access remotely, in all time zones, 24 hours per day.  Any place at any time, without resorting to a phone call or email, a current or potential customer will receive immediate support.

Improve Internal Work Efficiency

Bookings-Tracker will provide you with benefits for:

  • Substantially improved internal and external communications
  • Exploiting wider markets on existing and potential bookings
  • Providing outstanding service quality
  • Improved work efficiency

Bookings-Tracker will provide you with a massive return on investment with:

  • An improved user experience
  • Online bookings
  • Long term customer loyalty

This return on investment is achieved by a low cost of sale.

Improved Reporting

Bookings-Tracker will facilitate improved exchanges of information and experiences in internal workflow by using dynamic reporting functions.  It also provides you and your customer access to updated reports – helping to support your decisions.

Integration with Financial System

Bookings-Tracker is able to be integrated with your financial system.  This helps achieve time savings and provide efficiency gains by:

  • Sending automated financial transactions data
  • Generation of commercial statistics
  • Providing other management information

Case Study – The Overland Track

In 2005, Australia’s most popular long-distance trek, the Overland Track in the heart of the Tasmanian wilderness, was in danger of being ‘loved to death.’  Between 8,000 and 9,000 visitors were using the track annually, walking 65 kilometres through the wilderness and leaving their mark in ways which were detrimental to the track and surrounding areas.

Anxious to prevent further damage to the track and desperate to protect one of Tasmania’s signature experiences, the Department of Tourism, Arts and the Environment (DTAE) worked with ICS Multimedia to develop a world-first management system to guarantee the long-term sustainability of the track.

The project began with a full infrastructure audit which identified a number of run-down shelters and overcrowded campsites, with as many as 130 people a night at one location.  Based on this information, the project team decided to commission an online booking system, with ICS Multimedia selected as the preferred developer.

To complete the online booking system, a business case had to be developed to understand how walkers used the track, where they came from, how they preferred to book their trips and what their future buying plans were likely to be, and to cross-reference this information with the costs of asset depreciation and replacement over the next 10 years.

In parallel with the booking system, a marketing and communication action plan was launched to raise awareness of the changes and to encourage the support of local tourism operators, bushwalkers and the Tasmanian community.  The marketing and communication strategy included the establishment of a new website, www.overlandtrack.com.au, with one important feature being a feedback mechanism which enabled people to voice their concerns, provide suggestions and join a stakeholder mailing list.

When the Department rolled out its new system as developed by ICS Multimedia, numbers on the track were restricted to 60 walkers per day.  The first ‘booked’ walks on the track began on 1 November 2005 and there were a total of 2,224 bookings during the first full season.  A total of 59 days were completely booked out and there were only two days, at the end of April 2006, with no bookings.  Almost half-a-million dollars was raised from the booking fee – revenue which was automatically directed back into infrastructure to support the track.

While the total number of walkers using the track has not decreased, the flow is now constant, rather than a series of peaks and troughs.  A number of performance measures were identified to measure the success of the project, including visitor satisfaction, compliance, and implementation of infrastructure upgrades.  The Overland Track Walker Survey identified that 39% of walkers said the Overland Track was “one of the best things they have done in their lives.”