Blending traditional Irish charm and hospitality with modern luxury, Roe Park Resort – located within easy reach of the Giant’s Causeway – is one of Northern Ireland’s premier golf and spa destinations.
Seeking to improve their spa business, spa manager Alana McAtamney identified changing consumer behaviours as a business opportunity. Utilising Journey’s ecommerce platform, Roe Park Resort’s spa appointments have doubled year-on-year, with mobile bookings now accounting for 82% of all bookings and 40% of users booking between traditional ‘closed hours’ of 8pm to 8am.
McAtamney said: “We needed something to tap into the market for potential bookings coming in overnight, including from hotel guests who have already checked in to the resort. The online booking system has completed our IT infrastructure and made the [booking] experience a lot more seamless. It’s user friendly, and includes imagery of all treatments and spa offerings, which helps the client really understand their choices. It’s also easy for us to set up; you don’t have to be too techie.”
“We have seen a huge increase for last minute spa bookings,” added McAtamney, with the data showing lunch time (around 1pm) and evening (particularly 7pm to 10pm) as key hours for clients making bookings, often for the next day.
The peak booking periods are at times when the spa reception would either be closed, or the team are busy covering lunch breaks and building rapport with clients on arrival. By enabling online bookings, the spa team is now freed from such a high volume of phone calls and emails, giving them the ability to deliver exceptional customer service for clients at the spa.
McAtamney has also utilised parts of the system such as special offers and promotional codes to drive bookings from events, Spa & Golf members and weddings, with multi-item orders providing opportunities for even further revenue growth.
With features such as reward programmes and promotional codes integrated within the experience management system, McAtamney and the hotel’s sales and marketing team are able to take a more detailed approach with their ecommerce strategy, by running tailored campaigns to support off peak times, monitoring results in real-time, and gaining a deeper understanding of their market mix.
Roe Park Resort’s general manager, George Graham, added: “The importance of ecommerce to the hotel has increased immeasurably over the last number of years. Journey’s software has enabled our guests to book without having to call, which enables us to focus more on our in-person interactions, and concentrates the minds of staff.”
Discover more about Roe Park Resort at roeparkresort.com and Journey’s suite of technology solutions at [https://www..journey.travel/]journey.travel
