We have just completed a piece of work for Lambeth’s Sports and Recreation Unit advising on the future of their playing pitch booking service. We were asked to make recommendations for improving customer access to outdoor sports and pitch bookings especially in the field of on-line access.
As customers we are very used to buying tickets for the cinema and theatre on-line and using credit cards to pay. However, few authorities offer this service for playing fields and no-one does it well. Lambeth want to be leaders in the field.
We carried out a review of current practice in and around London and surveyed the suppliers of computer systems. Interestingly, some companies are now making use of the cloud to store data which allows them to offer a fully hosted service.
What we thought we’d find but didn’t, is a specialist company offering a booking service bureau to local authorities. We thought we’d come across a small, tech business offering to organise bookings across a number of authorities as a sort of clearing house. Perhaps there is a business opportunity for some-one out there?