How Best to use Your Summer Staff
Great news, summer is coming! And for tour and activity providers that means one thing – You are about to get busier. With the summer season, comes an increase in tourists, and hopefully this means more people looking for, and booking, your tours or activities.
With this extra workload you are probably considering taking on some extra staff to deal with the day to day tasks that will allow you to concentrate on more important areas.
But maybe your summer staff can be used in areas that are more beneficial to your business.
This blog post assesses the decision to take on extra staff for the summer months and looks at the best ways to use them.
As the busy summer season approaches, many tour and activity providers are taking on seasonal staff to help with the increased workload during the busy period. However, for many businesses, where money is an issue and budgets are tight, it is crucial you get them working in areas that will benefit your business.
Although summer employees will usually be paid somewhere around minimum wage and may not be full time, whatever you pay them you want to get the most for your money.
For example, an activity centre takes on a local college student to work in the office for the summer. Tasks include answering the phone, replying to emails and dealing with queries from the website. They are also asked to take and record bookings as they come in.
These tasks are usually done by the owner, but she doesn’t have the time during the summer as she is busy giving lessons.
The summer employee works for 8 hours per day, Monday to Saturday and is paid €7 an hour.
This works out at
€7 x 8 hours = €56 per day
€56x 6 days = €336 per week
€336x 12 weeks = €4,032
Using the above conservative figures shows the cost of taking on one summer employee will be over €4,000. That’s quite a chunk of money.But why get them to carry out tasks that can be done in a more cost effective way?
There have been many technological advances in the tourism industry in recent years. Smart tour and activity operators have adopted these new tools as they realise their customer is moving from offline to online.
Online booking software is one such technology that can ease the burden on you and your business. A professional booking engine, integrated on your website can take care of all those tasks that you were going to use your summer intern for. It means a decrease in workload as you increase bookings. If potential customers can book your tours or activities online it means you won’t need your summer staff to take phone calls, email queries and record bookings. Having these tasks taken care of online also means there is no risk of bookings lost due to errors from inexperienced staff.
So, instead, get your summer staff working in areas of the business where they can really add value. Get them meeting customers face to face, adding to the customers experience. Use your summer staff in areas where the human touch is important. Use your resources wisely, spend money in the right areas and use your staff in areas that will have the most impact.
Let our online booking and payment solution do the donkey work for you this summer!
Contact Vivit Booking Solutions on 051390017 to discuss how we can save you money and increase your bookings