Booking Fairness... Time for a Rethink??

I don’t think the current system favours anyone or is biased other than to those that are prepared to book way in advance. The message to members is to book now, even if they are not sure. This encourages members to reserve a pitch, especially at hot spot sites, even when they are still in the ‘looking’ or ‘dreaming’ stages of days away and they can take advantage of the Clubs’ no penalty cancellation policies later. It is a known fact in the leisure industry, long lead bookings have higher cancellation rates than others and I was surprised the Club did not introduce deposits when the rolling system was introduced.

If there are high cancellation rates. it can lead to distorted demand, is this something we are seeing?

In the hotel industry it has been shown that 7 percent of bookings are cancelled if no deposits are taken. This falls to 4 percent with deposits. I have no reason to believe it is any different for other types of industry including camping.

The complaints of difficulties of obtaining bookings at the Club’s  holiday type sites are not going to go away from this and other forums as long as bookings  are so easy to make and penalties for abuse are seen as being so feeble

peedee

No reason to believe, even when the club has stated the opposite when it removed deposits?

But is that any more believable than the figures that peedee put forward? As the saying goes " They would say that anyway"!

Peedee said:- In the hotel industry it has been shown that 7 percent of bookings are cancelled if no deposits are taken. This falls to 4 percent with deposits. I have no reason to believe it is any different for other types of industry including camping.

Quite honestly if that was the cancellation rate, a difference of 3%, it hardly makes a very strong argument for the reintroduction of deposits because the actual benefit gained seems very small given the cost of implementing  a deposit system. All those years ago when the online system went live I was told by a warden, whilst booking in,  they were having real problems with deposits being taken via HQ as the point of sale system then used on sites weren't compatible. It seemed strange that a short while afterwards deposits were abolished. We were told at the time that deposits didn't work and people just forewent the money and didn't bother letting the site know they weren't turning up. Now had it not been a software problem what was to stop the Club doubling the deposit to £20 which would have made people take a bit more notice? In between then and now the suggestion has been put forward that taking deposits would mean two transaction charges but recent rule changes means these transaction charges are low enough not to be an issue.

David

But your assumptions don't allow for cancelled pitches being rebooked, even at short notice so I suspect your £180000 a week figure is very wide of the mark. No organisation in the tourist industry is likely to completely run at 100% occupancy  but I reckon, certainly in the busy times of year, the Club run pretty close. What cancelled pitches allow, even late cancelled ones, is for other members to take advantage as we often do. 

It's a case of using the system to your advantage we have already booked sites for 2021 we have nothing to loose in doing so, we very rarely cancel as we also have the option to amend those bookings if it's possible to do so.  

I am sorry but you have no basis in fact for what you say. You have no idea whether people are making speculative bookings. Also how do you define a speculative booking. As far as any of us know bookings that are cancelled could be due to perfectly genuine reasons.