CentralPlanner also makes it easy to manage bookings for leisure facilities, wellness treatments and sports centers. Here it is important to select the right option.
There are two ways to make your offers available for booking:
Either you offer individual courts or lanes (tennis, bowling, squash) or
You can set a maximum number of guests per time unit (mini golf, laser tag).
Both options are possible with CentralPlanner. If you offer several leisure activities, you can also combine these options.
Example: You send 20 guests to the mini golf course every 15 minutes (option 2) and rent out the bowling alley by the hour (option 1).
To create reservation options, first go to Manage booking options & spots via the Account settings in the top right-hand corner. We create a test reservation option for each account in advance, for example “Black light mini golf”:
To rename this reservation option, click on Edit booking option. Here you can enter under “Name” what should be reserved (mini golf, bowling etc.). The guests will see this name later in the reservation form.
Select a color and enter the average length of time guests (should) stay here. For example, if you usually rent out a bowling alley for an hour, enter 60 minutes. If you send your guests to the mini golf course every quarter of an hour, enter 15 minutes and so on.
Now select one of the booking options already mentioned:
Option 1: Have individual courts, rooms or coaching sessions reserved (typical for bowling, tennis, squash, etc.).
Under this option, CentralPlanner offers you two levels of management to customize the reservation system to your business. The first level is the reservation option that your guests can book via your website.
If you would like to rent out a “closed” unit, for example a room, a track or even hours with a trainer, select option 1: “e.g. tables - combinations of tables are only possible if I create them manually”. Don't be confused by the term “tables”.
Now that you have created the reservation option, go “back” and click on “Manage seats”. This takes you to the second administration level, which your guests cannot see when making an online reservation.
In the second level, you define the details of the reservation option, for example the number of bowling lanes. Enter the name of the units (e.g. “Lane 1”, “Lane 2” etc.) and the maximum number of people. You can also specify whether this unit can be reserved online. To do this, click on “Schedule space online” or “Do not schedule space online”.
When a new booking comes in, CentralPlanner assigns a suitable, free lane. You can also select this yourself and then send the guest a confirmation. You can also change the allocation before the guest arrives. The guest cannot see which bowling lane has been allocated.
This division into two management levels offers numerous combination options (trainer lessons, wellness treatments, etc.) and allows CentralPlanner to be perfectly adapted to your business. We have put together some examples here.
Option 2: Maximum number of guests per time unit (typical for laser tag, black light minigolf, climbing garden, etc.)
For leisure activities such as minigolf or laser tag, it often makes little sense to rent out the course as a whole. Instead, a certain number of guests pass through the course in a predictable time window. In minigolf, for example, a second group can start shortly after the first without disturbing the first.
Select option 2: “e.g. mini golf rounds - you specify the maximum number of guests per time unit and any number of people can be accepted until this is reached”. Then enter the maximum number of people for the selected time unit. For example, you can send 20 guests to the mini golf course every 15 minutes or let 20 players into the hall per laser tag game.
If a booking is now made for 8 guests, the system will only allow a maximum of 12 for the same time period for the next booking. You can activate the reservation option for online bookings under Create or update online forms.