A person holding a bank card while paying for a booking on a laptop

What an online booking system is, how it works for you and your customers, and what it means for an activity, tour or rental business.

What is an online booking system for activity businesses?

If your bookings arrive by phone, email, Instagram messages and people walking in, you’ll know how much time goes into keeping track of them. Someone writes it in the diary, someone else checks there’s space, and on the day the group is still filling in forms by the door.

An online booking system puts all of that in one place. Here’s what it is, how it works for you and your customers, and what to look for.

An online booking system is software that lets customers see what’s available, book and pay online, at any time. It’s sometimes called a reservation system, booking software or ticketing software.

Behind the scenes, it gives you one calendar for every booking, wherever it came from. For activity businesses it usually also handles the things a hotel or restaurant system doesn’t: waivers, instructors, kit, group sizes and age limits.

They select Book now on your website and choose an activity, a date and how many people are coming.

They pay online by card, or Apple Pay or Google Pay on their phone.

They get a confirmation email straight away.

Before the day, they sign your waiver and answer your questions online, and get a reminder.

After their visit, they can be asked to leave a review.

Every booking lands in the same calendar, so your team can see who’s coming, which instructor is on and what kit is out. The system stops selling a session when it’s full, so you don’t double-book.

Walk-ins and phone bookings should go through the same system too. That way your availability is always right, and your reports show every sale, however it was paid.

Bookings at any hour: people plan trips in the evening and at weekends, when your phone is off.

Less admin: no back-and-forth emails to agree a date, and no chasing payments by hand.

Faster check-in: waivers and questionnaires are done before customers arrive.

No double-booking: capacity, instructors and kit are checked as each booking comes in.

Knowing your customers: reports show what sells, when, and who comes back.

Systems vary a lot. The main things to check are how easy booking is on a phone, whether it handles everything you sell (activities, rentals, memberships, vouchers or stays), how payments and fees work, and whether waivers, staff and kit are built in. Our checklist of what to look for in a booking system goes through each one, and our guide to how a booking system protects your data covers security and GDPR.

eola is a booking system made for activity businesses: watersports and outdoor centres, tours, courses, rentals and sites with accommodation. Bookings come from your own website through the eola booking widget, from your front desk, and from the eola marketplace, all into one dashboard.

Online waivers and questionnaires, card, cash and invoice payments, unlimited instructors and the marketplace are included on every plan. Rentals, customer check-in and automated resource management are on Pro.

Create your account. You don’t need to enter payment details to start exploring.

Connect to Stripe, eola’s payment provider, so you can get paid. Your bank details go straight to Stripe.

Add your activities under Products > Activities, with schedules, prices and add-ons.

Create your disclaimers and question packs, and assign them to each activity.

Add the booking widget to your website. Go to Toolset > Widget > My Widgets and copy one line of code into your site, or send it to your web designer.

If you’re moving from another system and have a lot of customer data, let our team know and we’ll help you bring it across.

Starter is £0 a month and Pro is £249 a month. Card payments have a 1.7% + 30p processing fee, and customers pay a 5% booking fee at checkout. See our pricing page for what each plan includes.

Want to see how this could work for your business? Book a demo or get in touch with our team.

What an online booking system is, how it works for you and your customers, and how to get started with one for your activity business.

What is an online booking system? A guide for activity businesses

A group doing yoga outdoors, with a thank-you email asking them to review the business on Google and Tripadvisor

Add your Google, Tripadvisor or Facebook review links in eola and we’ll ask every customer for a review after their visit. Free on every plan.

Review links: ask customers for a review after their visit

Most happy customers mean to leave a review and then forget. Review links put a one-click review button in the thank-you email customers get after their visit, so every booking ends with a request for a review, without anyone on your team chasing it.

You add up to three review links, for example your Google Business Profile, Tripadvisor and Facebook pages. We add them to the automatic emails customers get after their booking, so nobody has to remember to ask on a busy day.

You can also add your own message to that email for each activity, rental or accommodation, using the Post experience email field. It’s a good place to say thank you or mention what’s coming up next.

Reviews build trust with new customers. For more on why they matter, read How to get more online reviews for your activity business, and our tips on how to manage bad online reviews.

The day after their booking finishes, customers get a thank-you email from you. It explains that every review helps your business, followed by a button for each review link.

For the most popular review sites, the button names the site:

For other sites, the button uses the site’s name from the link.

The email goes to the organiser and to every adult participant and guardian on the booking, not just the person who paid. It also suggests other things to book with you, to bring them back.

About two weeks later, customers who haven’t booked again get a follow-up email from eola with more things to do. It includes a link to leave a review, using your first review link.

Go to Toolset > Widget > Widget settings.

Under Customer Review Links, paste the URL of each review page into a Review Link field. You can add up to three.

To add your own message, open an activity, rental or accommodation, go to the Details step and fill in Post experience email under Customer comms.

Review links are available to every partner, on Starter and Pro, at no extra cost. It takes a couple of minutes to add yours, and from then on every customer is asked for a review.

Paste the link to your review page, not your website. eola won’t save a review link that’s the same as your website.

Regulars who’ve had another booking with you in the last four weeks won’t get the thank-you email after every visit.

Bookings that come from Pitchup don’t get these emails.

Customers tend to review on the site they already use, so start with the one your customers know best, often Google.

Add up to three review links and eola asks every customer for a review in the thank-you email after their visit, with a follow-up two weeks later.

Review links: ask every customer for a review after their visit

How review links work for you

What customers see

How to set it up

Good to know

See eola in action

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