New Site Booking System

JV, it doesn’t seem that long ago you were being accused of being the C&MC’s chief drum banger within a cabal of others who saw no wrong with the C&MC regardless of what they did. Now you seem to have done a 180dg shift. What has irked you so, is it just the small deposit that is being asked for that began your distancing?.

PS-this is a simple question, please don’t read into it some deep attack as it isn’t I’m just surprised at your recent rhetoric👍🏻

I suspect most large organisations tend to defend the status quo until they are at the point of changing it and that is what seems to have happened with this change. Had they year after year, as many requested, published cancellation figures that showed up the shortcomings of the current system they would have been criticised for not doing something about it. Hence, probably, the radio silence on the subject until they reached the point where they were ready to tell us about the new system. The irony is that the new system will impact to a greater extent on those that use Club sites the most. Those people tend to be older and more prone to have to change plans because of medical issues and we have yet to know how such emergencies will be sympathetically looked at if bookings have to be cancelled late on. Perhaps there is no justification for that sympathy but if its not built in I fear a lot of loyalty will be lost.

David

The impact will be on speculative bookers , those that abused the system, and the  reason for the change,age is irrelevant 
I was gob smacked, when the club gave the percentage of speculative bookings, 
As we use private, and CCC sites  which are deposit based booking systems, for us .and those that did not abuse the system, how much they use the club  will not change ,it probably will increase.  
A real world example is ,We have already booked two extended stay, one down south, and the other in Scotland, and in both case we have had to go private or CCC, rather then club sites, as many club sites are already booked , of which we now at least 25% are speculative, blocking bookings,  and will not be used .
If the loyalty of members is dependent on the ability to do speculative bookings,  then that is not loyalty 

The club has previously been opaque on the 'late cancellation' issue. We can only deduce that either the club has been ignoring the problem or it has recently escalated, perhaps due to staycations and Covid.

It would, however, have been more readily solvable and, possibly, more acceptable to the membership if the cancellation period had been increased from the paltry 3 days to the proposed 21 days with members credit card details held on file. Late cancellations could then have been dealt with by a penalty fee of £x. A dual rate could even be implemented for a shorter notice (7 days) cancellation with little difficulty. The club could have then maintained the USP of 'no deposit'.

As I posted much earlier in this thread "sledgehammer and nut".

People forget that the club is run on behalf of the membership and the membership is represented throughout. It might have been more democratic if a greater variety of statistics had been published more frequently this would have reduced speculation by interested parties. But on some occasions details need to remain private to prevent business advantages being taken up by similar organisations. However decisions have now been made on behalf of the membership to make the booking system more accountable in several ways eg preventing speculative bookings and cancellations, providing pitch choice, securing income and lessening financial losses.

Deposit or not, EVERY booking is speculative until the person turns up.

+1, good post.
Particularly the last 2 lines👍🏻

I’m amazed that the club has allowed the speculative booking to continue for so long. All the time maintaining that it wasn’t really a problem, then suddenly all this change and a report giving the true total of speculative bookings. Which in any business is truly unbelievable. Caravan/motor home ownership is so popular now and their membership so high that, in my opinion, they have had to sort themselves out and have a long overdue shake up. I think there will be more changes to come as new and younger more business savvy people work their way to the top. I’m not saying that I agree with all the changes, as Cyber said, sledgehammer to crack a nut.

I suspect that this would have little impact on specualtive bookings. All it would achieve is move the cancellations peak from 4 days to 22 days and many weekends would still get fully booked a year in advance.

peedee

Some are just made with more commitment than others.

peedee