‘The combination of booking and planning system is very strong’

Management software

To keep the events on the right track, good management software is indispensable. Harry: ‘In the beginning, we built our own scheduling software for this purpose and ran the box office in-house. At some point we switched to hospitality software. That works very well for the cash register, but the reservation system tends to be rather basic. That changed when we switched to Recras in 2019 or 2020.’

From booking to after-sales

‘We have now fully implemented Recras’ booking software on our website. From step one it can be deployed and we mostly use that route for automatic bookings that do not require a quotation. But of course we also have event bookings that do require a quote. Once it is optioned and accepted, it leaves our sales colleagues and the Procurement and Planning departments are put on it. ‘The booking is then closed through the POS system after which some after-sales takes place via mailing,’ Harry explains. ‘Thanks to Recras, work processes have now become clearer in many areas, and therefore faster and more efficient.’

Ceilings

Implementing Recras’ software takes time and attention. ‘That’s why we did it in our own way for the first two years, but now we have the planning use well in place. This year, we will take the next step by making more use of everything we can do with the management software. Recras can be used very specifically at product level and link that to the start times. But precisely because it is so specific, we sometimes run into speed limits in marketing and planning. This always involves matters that are in the interest of multiple branches and that sometimes complicates things. Such issues we put to Recras.’

Best party

Despite those ceilings, Harry is very satisfied with Recras. ‘Before we switched to them, we compared several parties. Recras definitely turned out to be the best party in that. What I find very strong is their combination of the booking system and the planning system. The software also takes into account that there is such a thing as an individual and a group. In the hospitality industry, people normally work with tables, but you can imagine that things are very different at the quad track. That has been completely implemented in our planning programme thanks to Recras.’

Events

‘It is very important to be able to properly set up the guest’s journey from registration or booking to on-site event activity. Recras can do that and I haven’t come across that anywhere else. It is made very specifically for the leisure industry, so I can definitely recommend it to others. The contact with the people at Recras is also good. I mainly have contact with Harrie, the owner. He is sympathetic to the ceiling we are up against and knows how to translate the business to the developers. And if there is anything, they always respond quickly. I’m very positive about them.”