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Technology is Key to Increased Profitability for Europe's Leading Leisure Attractions

Hotel Booking Europe's largest leisure attractions see their sales and admission systems as outdated, inefficient and a barrier to sales growth, research by Mintel on behalf of BT has found.

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Travel Agency Twelve leading attractions in the UK, France, Germany and Spain took part in the survey conducted earlier this year. Between them, these attractions drew more than 52 million customers in 2004 with an average spend per customer of EUR33.

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Cheap Hotel The survey revealed that most of the attractions saw their current systems as "old fashioned" and "manual", with some using systems that had been in place for more than ten years and several not having online ticket booking functionality. Many attractions see the installation of a new IT system as a top priority, and plan to put greater emphasis on online sales and integrated trade partner ticketing platforms.

With over twenty years experience and a portfolio of over 20, 000 IT products, Misco is one of Europes biggest suppliers of information technology prod...

Flight Booking Gary Bullard, managing director, BT Global Services UK, said: "The leisure industry has been through a period of consolidation, with new owners clearly understanding the need to transform their sales and admission systems. Standardising the IT infrastructure across different sites is a key element in cutting costs and boosting efficiency, leading to increased profits." Advanced ticket sales, in particular those booked online, were identified as a key method of increasing visitor numbers yet many of those interviewed did not offer online ticket booking.

With over twenty years experience and a portfolio of over 20, 000 IT products, Misco is one of Europes biggest suppliers of information technology prod...

Travel Agent The average proportion of tickets sold directly to customers rather than via third parties was about 75 per cent of all sales. Of these, less than a third were advanced sales. By comparison, more than 90 per cent of third party ticket sales were advanced bookings.

With over twenty years experience and a portfolio of over 20, 000 IT products, Misco is one of Europes biggest suppliers of information technology prod...

Hotel Chicago Many of those surveyed communicated with their trade partners via phone, fax and e-mail - a costly and inefficient method. Those attractions expressed an interest in integrating their sales and admission system with trade partners, transforming the customer booking process from a time consuming search across multiple sources of information into a single visit to a destination portal. This approach enables customers to purchase tickets to an attraction and at the same time make hotel, theatre and restaurant bookings, representing huge potential to increase the share of visitor wallet through the online portal. The survey also found that overseas visitors, driven by low-cost airline travel, were becoming an increasingly important market for attractions. These customers in particular want to buy tickets online at anytime of the day and in a variety of languages and currencies.

Online Booking The use of vouchers that have to be converted into tickets at the attraction on the day of visit was the most common reason cited for contributing to queuing. Other reasons included cash only ticket purchase at the entrance gates and no advance sales.

Travel Health Insurance The most common approach for reducing queues was simply opening up additional gates/cash registers during peak visitor times.

Hotel Reservation BT has been working in the leisure industry for more than 11 years and has developed its sales and admissions system, RialtoPlus, to meet the technology and business needs highlighted by attractions in the research.

London Hotel Booking RialtoPlus automates all trade partner interactions. Through a web based interface, attractions and trade partners can check availability and make real time bookings, removing costly manual processes. The system can transform an attractions' online booking platform into a destination portal which offers a range of packaged special offers, such as hotel accommodation and restaurant meals, enabling attractions to increase profits and boost the share of visitor wallet.

Discount Travel RialtoPlus is multi-lingual, supporting European languages and payments in euros, US dollars and sterling, making reserving a ticket easy for overseas guests. With RialtoPlus customers can also buy a ticket online and print their tickets at home with a barcode that can be scanned on arrival, reducing queues and enhancing visitor experience.

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