The prestige hotel group QHotels has chosen to install BRS Golf’s online tee time management system at all its golf courses including: The Westerwood near Glasgow, Telford Golf & Country Club, Hellidon Lakes in Northamptonshire, Aldwark Manor in York, and Forest Pines in North Lincolnshire.
BRS Golf was awarded the contract because of its flexibility, ease of use, detailed reporting and BRS Golf’s commitment to integration with other vendors on the market.
At QHotels over sixty staff will use the system nationwide, including directors, managers, professionals and administration staff. In addition to this tee times can be reserved centrally by hotel guests via the Q Hotels group website, or by members and casual green fee visitors at any one of the five golf courses via the appropriate hotel website.
The BRS Golf Tee Time Manager comprises three software modules: a comprehensive administration module for the back office; a visitors’ module that enables booking and paying online by credit card; and one for members to view and book tee times themselves online, including for competitions.
The rise and rise of online booking
As the group director of golf at QHotels, one of Nic Oldham’s priorities is to maximise the visitor income from the golf side of the business and online booking is a key element in this strategy. Making golf easier to book and confirm is essential.
“BRS has developed an excellent system,” he said. “More and more of our guests that are looking to play golf, prefer to book online. We’re working hard to maintain a reputation for high quality, and the BRS system enables us to improve the service we offer to our golfing guests. For our members, it offers an ideal way of seeing what’s on and when they can play from the comfort of the home or office.
“With the spread of broadband, the way people are booking their hotels stays is changing: around 22% now book online, compared with only 2% a couple of years ago. Golf’s going the same way and a consequence is that it’s vital that Q Hotels has a booking system that captures a level of detail about golfing guests that we’d expect of the booking technology we use to run the hotels. This also means we’ve got the ideal information with which to market special offers and breaks to our golfing database.”
Better reports, user-friendliness, and price flexibility
“As a manager I want to be able to see forward and be able to understand the trends regarding the golf bookings; BRS can help me do all this and more with reports that can show me the numbers of rounds booked, the forecast revenues, the deposits paid and the provisional payments.”
Training staff to use the reservation system was a major factor, with sixty staff across all five sites needing to be shown how to use the system. Nic and BRS modified the training required so that staff dealing with different functions can focus on the aspects of the BRS system they need.
Nic particularly appreciates the ease with which the prices of different tee times can be changed. With all sorts of golfing breaks, packages, special offers, and discounts for off-peak times, Nic needed a system that is really simple to change, as and when required. “It’s particularly good in this respect. We do this with the room rates, so being able to use a system that gives us the same opportunities with the tee times at each of our courses is a major advantage.”
QHotels www.qhotels.co.uk
BRS Golf www.brsgolf.com