“You name it, we host it,” says Auckland Racing Club Event Centre manager Craig Fenwick. With 22 conference rooms, numerous other bookable assets, and a schedule that must allow for the Club’s frequent race events, administering the
Events Centre is a complex task. Several years ago the club commissioned a specially-written PC-based system to help with the job.
But Fenwick says the bespoke system had a couple of significant shortcomings. First, the quality of its reports left a lot to be desired and second, the system did not include a diary function. This meant the staff of six events co-ordinators had to share a single diary in book form in order to record event bookings.
Fenwick, who has 20 years of experience in the hotel industry, says he had never seen anything quite like it. “It was just a nightmare,” he says. The club investigated upgrading the bespoke package but Fenwick says the cost would have been prohibitive, so the company started to shop around for a packaged solution. Three suppliers were short listed but after attending a series of meeting and demonstrations the club settled on Rendezvous from Savio Solutions. “Rendezvous was the closest fit to our selection criteria, it did most of what we wanted the package to do.”
Installation went smoothly and after two months spent configuring reports and transferring data from the old system, including historical data and the names of rooms and their dimensions,Rendezvous was ready to go live. Fenwick says the formats of a couple of the reports had to be changed but there were no major issues during installation or thereafter.
“Everyone can work with it at the same time, and you can immediately see what’s booked, either confirmed or provisionally, and what’s available. Since we installed it we have never double booked a room, or had people turn up for an event which had not been booked.”
Staff have quickly become proficient at using the system and it enables them to handle enquiries much more efficiently. Fenwick says staff will soon be able to email details of function rooms to customers while they are still on the phone.
Fenwick says he is particularly impressed with Rendezvous’ reporting functions and its ability to cope with the particular requirements of the centre.
These include an audit trail for discounts, the ability to close off the grandstand and various other facilities on race days, and the ability to book assets such as grandstand boxes and car parks as well as conference rooms.
At any time Rendezvous will give Fenwick a report on the types of functions booked, the percentage of revenue that each represents, and even the total number of people in the building. As well as historical reports, Fenwick uses Rendezvous to produce forecasts for up to two years ahead.
“Operationally, tasks like invoicing have become much more efficient, and proof of the overall system efficiency is that we haven’t had to increase the numbers of staff even though the workload has increased since we installed it.” Overall, Fenwick says Rendezvous has become a vital part of the Event Centre’s business, which allows staff to work more efficiently and allows him to manage more effectively.
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