Business overview

Kym & Kaye Bernardi have owned and operated the BIG4 Shepparton East Holiday Park for 14 years. They are an independent member of BIG4 Holiday Parks franchise, which has parks all around Australia. They currently have 23 self-contained cabins, 12 ensuite  powered sites, powered caravan & tent sites and 12 mobile homes. The park predominantly caters for the family market. Both Kym & Kaye have made significant capital investment into technology and their park ensuring it has some of the best family friendly facilities like giant jumping pillow, solar heated pool, synthetic grass tennis court, pedal go-karts, recreation room and camp kitchens.

Tell us about the web technologies you are using in the business

Website & Online Bookings

Our website is our key marketing tool. Our live online booking mechanism is vital, meaning that guests can book at any time of the day or night at their leisure. It also helps us to keep our staff focused on serving our customers better as opposed to the administration aspects of the business.  As an owner of the business I update the website as much as possible with fresh photographs, content, keywords, special offers and stock well in advance. Our website is also mobile friendly so that guests can use a smartphone to book while they’re on the road. This allows us to cater to last minute bookings with families who are on the road.

Image Source: Big4 Website, 2013

We also take bookings for our park via third party websites like Wotif, Need it Now, Bookeasy & other advertising sites such as Visit Victoria, Total Travel etc. These websites are not only good online booking sites but also good referral sites. However, to ensure we are on top of our game the listing needs to be managed – especially to to watch for both positive and negative comments and respond accordingly. I usually check these websites each week to add new photographs, content, special offers and see the comments & feedback about our park and respond to them.

To manage our listings on different websites we use a channel manager called Netroomz. The platform makes it easy to manage all third party sites in relation to both room availability and tariffs. The room allocation and tariffs are set through my front office reception computerised booking system and the channel manager takes the information from there. For example, if a person or family is booking a holiday with us via one of these websites, the Netroomz system talks to the back end of our website in real time to ensure that both the prices and rooms are available and the booking is confirmed. We can also set up promotion codes, show last minute bookings, get automatic email updates on stock levels, charge extra for optional extras like Wifi, breakfast and do a whole lot more. Besides the features we also learn more about our customers as it provides in-depth analytics by integrating with our Google Analytics system.

Social Media

Image Source: Big4 Website, 2013

We have also embraced social media through the use of Facebook and YouTube. These sites are essential to us to ensure in keeping up with the social media savvy market that we are endeavoring to capture.

Analytics

We make use of Google Analytics to keep track of movement on our website. This way we know where customers are coming from online, what interests them most, how they got to the website and what they purchased. We also use Google alerts which advises us whenever our name is mentioned on a website, blog or comment. Google is now fast becoming one of our largest referral sources.

What benefits have you gained from using these tools?

Increase in bookings

Our online bookings are ever increasing and our phone doesn’t ring as much as it once did, because consumers are making decisions and booking online based on what they can see on our website. This trend is rapidly growing and as such, is a cost effective way of both marketing and receiving bookings.

Reduction in marketing costs 

Social media is free and has the potential to reach a huge number of our target market. Before, we used to spend alot on newspaper ads, brochures, flyers etc with a limited number of responses back. I think people are now just programmed to ignore these ads to a certain extent. My focus now lies in using social media, referral websites and search engines to market my business. These are the areas where my customers search before they decide on their holiday destination and by me being there I am able to gain far more reach with a less amount of money spent. Over the years I have been using tutorials on social media to better understand how I can use these tools to cater to my customers needs and offer them what they are looking for from a holiday.

How do you plan to use high speed broadband in your business when the NBN arrives?

High speed broadband will be a fantastic improvement to our business as it will greatly increase efficiency in areas such as updating websites, channel managing our sites and uploading our YouTube videos. We will be able to react more quickly to changes we need to make to our sites. I seem to waste an inordinate amount of time waiting for websites to load – I look forward to this downtime being greatly reduced.

What advice do you have for other businesses who want to maximise their use of web technologies?

Embrace technology! Choose the type of technology which best suits your business and what you are trying to achieve with it, and then spend as much time on it as you can. It is increasingly more important to work on your business, not in your business.

Ken Clarke watching a dental procedure on Uni TV. (Source: IBES, 2013)

The Victorian Minister for Technology, The Hon Gordon Rich-Phillips officially switched on the Uni TV project on Friday 12 April at the Rural Clinical School in Shepparton.

About The Uni TV Project

The Uni TV project delivers dental education via Internet Protocol Television (IPTV). Dental education has usually been restricted to face to face interaction where students were forced to attend classes in person. However, with the launch of the program students can now view transmissions live and on demand of high-definition 2D and 3D images of procedures.

Final year students in the Doctor of Dental Science will trial this technology to enhance their learning. Uni TV provides them with a great opportunity to stay up to date with their course from a remote location. For example, students from the Rural Clinical School in Shepparton can access relevant material for their studies even while away from the main campus.

Speaking at the switch on, IBES Senior Research Fellow Ken Clarke said, “IPTV infrastructure was designed to be scalable. It can provide multiple simultaneous channels for many independent ‘broadcasters’. Various educational, community, and professional organisations could use IPTV to reach their own target audiences with specialised services supported by various business models.”

Uni TV is a partnership between the Melbourne Dental School and the Institute for a Broadband-Enabled Society (IBES), Ericsson Australia, AARNet and Panasonic Australia. It is supported by the Victorian Government’s Broadband-Enabled Innovation Program (BEIP).

The Digital Strategy 101 workshops commence in October. For more information visit www.digitalstrategy101.com.au .

In the video below, Tim Gentle discusses what participants can expect from the workshops. Tim has developed and will deliver the course.

Watch this video on YouTube.

Would you like to discover firsthand how the National Broadband Network and the high speed digital economy will change the way we live?

The Hume RDA are offering you the opportunity to visit the NBNco Discovery Centre and RMIT to experience the future digital economy for yourself.

Join the Hume Regional Development Australia Committee in a free day program that includes:

1. A visit to the NBN Co Discovery Centre, Docklands, including:

• A 45 minute presentation from NBN technology experts
• Hands on interaction with future NBN –enabled technologies
• Experiencing how we will live, work and educate in the future
• Learn how we will manage our health and environment in the coming years
• Exclusive question and answer session with senior NBN Co representatives

2. A tour of the RMIT Advanced Manufacturing Precinct

Coach travel to and from Melbourne will be provided. Coach departing Wangaratta at 9am with stops at Benalla,
Seymour and Euroa (returning approximately 7pm)

When: Friday 11th May 2012

Cost: Free (lunch not provided)

Seats are limited so book your seat today by contacting Jenny Brown. Jennifer.Brown@dpcd.vic.gov.au