intelligent website search technology
LIR in action: TeeTime Scotland
Download the PowerPoint presentationIntroduction
The TeeTime Scotland and TeeTime Ireland websites provide information on more than 900 Scottish and Irish golf courses and around 1000 hotels, guest houses and B&Bs. The booking facilities on the sites allow golfers to reserve teetimes either as one-offs or with hotels as part of an itinerary.
Background
Typically visitors are small groups from North America who play six to eight courses over a two week period. Many have little idea of the geography of the countries or the choice of courses beyond the Open Championship venues. They would like to put together a tour but are not inclined to explore all the options on the site. In the past they would email the tour operator and ask for a tour to be constructed to suit their needs. Finding out what their needs were, took several emails or telephone calls, and a great deal of work by TeeTime staff in checking availability of hotels and courses. The low conversion rate meant this approach was not cost effective.
The Lir Solution
The structure of the website databases meant a great deal of information could be inferred from them: what hotels were convenient for which courses, for example. A Planner section in the website gathered information about the visitor party and this could be supplemented in the itinerary suggestion tool. Specific rules about hotels and courses, such as when ladies could play, where only fourballs were acceptable, where handicap limits applied, where a particular visitor attraction was close by to keep non-golfers happy, how long a drive there was between certain courses, or indeed any piece of knowledge the experienced tour operator wanted encapsulated, could be added and edited online by TeeTime booking staff. The result was TIRA (The Intelligent Reservations Agent) which automatically generated itineraries for website visitors, allowed them to be modified if required, and then confirmed with a single click. An electronic brochure of the proposed tour was also created automatically and could be emailed to the visitor or any member of the touring party. Once the itinerary is in place, the full booking and payment history, plus any requests for additional services, are available to the booker via a password-protected personal page.
The Result
Since TIRA was added to the TeeTime Scotland site visitor numbers have increased by over 400%. Bookings have been considerably up on the same period in the previous year and a larger proportion of visitors have booked hotels as well as tee times. The amount of time staff have spent constructing itineraries where sales were not converted has decreased by over 60%.