Improvements on "Group Price Packages"
complete
Andrew Gregory
As I am slowly getting assigned more fishing charters and doing coachings, I'm learning more about how they operate. I talked with Brandt about listing price packages "per boat" or something similar and here are some details of what we went over that are use cases for fishing and hunting listings:
For fishing, most charters run one boat a day. That boat might have anywhere from 1-4 spots available, but if they book any amount of people between 1-4, that boat is booked for the day. Currently, we could set up price packages to include the specified number of guests, but that means the charter needs to open 4 slots a day. An issue many of them bring up is if that 4 person max is not met, there are still available spots to book, but they are actually booked for the day. A work around is to not include say 3 or 4 guests when making a "group price package" and have them all include one guests, but this would then show the outfitter the wrong number of guests on their calendar. Same goes for the waterfowl side of things that offer a flat rate/private groups: 8 slots are available, but a private group of 6 might book, and now that day is booked no matter if the max is reach, so that day needs to closed and not allow for two more guests to book separately. Not sure what we will call this but for sure worth discussing, Brandt also mentioned could be good for the industry so persuade guys to not mix groups (a common complaint and request from sportsman, specifically on the waterfowl side of things).
Coco Pahl
complete
Coco Pahl
planned
Fisher Bruhn
I see what Andy is talking about and it could use improvements, I'm just not 100% sure what the right path is.
One idea is a fixed + variable package. Lots of the Charters have a fixed rate of "up to 2 Anglers" then a variable rate for any additional anglers after that. But to Andy's point, once a boat is on the water. It's booked.
The same thing would apply to waterfowl outfitters who do not mix groups in a blind. Say there is an 8-man blind, but a 6 man group has booked it. The remaining 2 slots are still available. Now usually this gets mitigated by the Outfitter setting a minimum to book high enough to where this issue doesn't happen, but based on their operation structure, it is not always full proof.
Joel Moreau
2 potential solutions / brainstorm:
- during package creation, have a checkmark at the bottom that says "block listing availability if booked". So if someone booked the 2 man option, it would block the availability for that entire day.
- tie the package to a resource - like a boat. Under outfitter profile, you'd be able to create a resource, like a boat, and you'd have the option to assign a package option to that boat. It would function similar to how the lodge assigning works. If that package is booked, since it is tied to the boat, the date should become unavailable.
Caveat - this could become a complication for party boats where you're mixing groups on a boat, but I think we would just cross that bridge when we get there.
Coco Pahl Guidesly has an interesting way of setting this up in their package creation where they account for shared vs private trips.
here is brandt's login to guidesly if you want to go play around with how they do it.
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Joel Moreau
I agree that we need a way to mark off the entire calendar's availability if they're really booking by the boat. And we need to still maintain the ability to select how many people are actually on the boat so that split pay works properly.
Joel Moreau
I agree that we need a way to mark off the entire calendar's availability if they're really booking by the boat. And we need to still maintain the ability to select how many people are actually on the boat so that split pay works properly.
Andrew Gregory
Feel free to chime in Brandt Roger Fisher Bruhn William Fontenot