booking system for leisure activities

The world of leisure activities is incredibly diverse – pottery classes, group sports training, escape rooms and board games, quizzes, evening dance lessons, and much more. What do all these activities have in common? Customers want to book in advance, but these days they simply cannot be bothered to wait for a phone call or an email response. Online booking has become a natural expectation across the entire leisure industry – and organizers who respond to this need have a clear advantage over those who still rely on paper diaries or bookings by phone.

What needs to be addressed ...
  • Managing different types of activities at once – one-off lessons, regular courses, and large group events.
  • Organizing waiting lists for popular activities.
  • Selling gift and discount vouchers.
  • Different price levels for children, adults, seniors, or pass holders.
  • Coordinating multiple instructors and venues through a single, easy-to-navigate booking page.

Leisure activities face one specific problem - demand tends to be unevenly distributed over time. Popular time slots fill up within a minute, while less attractive ones remain completely empty. A well-configured booking system can actively influence this imbalance – for example, through conditional pricing that offers better rates for less popular time slots. When customers pay in advance and receive a reminder the day before the event, they are dramatically more likely to attend. For group activities, reaching the minimum capacity is crucial – having to cancel a class because only three of the planned ten people signed up is a situation every organizer wants to avoid. Real-time occupancy information and configurable rules for the minimum number of participants give operators the tools to manage such scenarios proactively and well in advance, rather than apologizing after the fact.

Leisure activity customers are a loyal, recurring group – they attend regularly, bring friends and family, and are happy to buy in advance if you give them the option. Passes, class credit, and discounted packages are tools that work for every type of activity – from tennis and children's English courses to regular group martial arts training. Gift vouchers are another category that can attract entirely new customers who might otherwise never have discovered the activity. Customers who attend for the first time using a voucher and have a great experience very often return as paying visitors. By digitizing the entire process, from booking and payment to record-keeping, operators save time, eliminate manual paperwork, and gain insights into their customers, their habits, and their preferences. This provides a foundation for making decisions about schedules, offerings, and potential marketing activities.

Key features for leisure activities

The diversity of leisure activities requires a flexible solution that can handle regular courses for established groups, one-off workshops, and sports facilities that can be booked freely. The features listed below cover the entire operational cycle – from the initial booking through payment and communication with participants to check-in and building a loyal customer base.

Event: One single event

The easiest event type to set up and use, offering a booking for a specific, fixed time from and to, including an optional capacity limit. A customer always books the entire listed event.

Event: One single event

more in the documentation

Offer customers a reservation for a fixed time slot with a limited capacity – ideal wherever more than one person needs to be able to attend an event, but not more than you're able to serve.

With the Full single event type, a customer always books the whole event as set, i.e. a fixed time slot from – to, with no option to choose a custom time. This is typically an event with a higher capacity, taking place at a fixed time – suitable for sports events and lessons, seminars, lectures, concerts, exhibition openings, one-off courses, workshops, or tours.

For this type you can also enable a so-called waiting list, where a customer can still express interest in booking even after all available capacity has been used up. This event type also supports creating recurring reservations and supports online events.

Online payments

Being able to pay for a reserved service through an online payment gateway is now the standard. Customers today are used to paying quickly and securely in online shops and expect the same comfort when booking or ordering services online.

Online payments

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Let customers pay for their reservation or tickets online right away, before the service is provided – faster, more convenient, and with the certainty that the reservation will be paid, and therefore used.

The reenio system allows you to require prepayment as part of the booking process, so a customer's reservation only becomes valid once paid. You decide yourself whether online payment is mandatory, or whether you leave it up to the customer to pay on site. With mandatory payment, you can set a deadline by which a new reservation must be paid, otherwise it is automatically cancelled and the slot is released for another customer.

For online payments you can choose from several supported payment gateways. The reservation system then handles the technical connection and communication with the chosen gateway, but all business and formal matters are handled directly with the payment gateway provider – you keep the money you receive under your own control, in your own merchant account.

  • GoPay

    An online payment gateway offering a wide range of payment methods, from card payments to fast bank transfers, Apple Pay, or Google Pay.

  • Comgate

    Another Czech payment gateway that also operates in other European countries. Its payment methods vary and cover common needs.

  • Stripe

    A global payment gateway that is becoming increasingly popular. It offers fast integration and approval, so you can start accepting payments within minutes.

  • Bank transfer

    A special type of payment method where the reservation system itself can generate a QR code for payment and then automatically verify and match received payments.

After a successful payment, the system automatically marks the reservation as paid and generates and sends the customer a payment document. The reenio system offers a wide range of options and features for working with payments, including exports, refunds, and more. However, it should be noted that reenio itself is not an accounting system.

Punch cards and customer credit

Customers who use your services repeatedly and regularly will welcome an efficient way to pay for them, including a discount. Whether it's a punch card for a certain number of visits or a set value, or top-up credit that customers draw down, this feature has you covered.

Punch cards and customer credit

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Offer loyal customers a more convenient way to pay for repeat visits – a punch card for a set number of visits or value, or top-up customer credit.

The reenio system offers several ways to let customers pay for reservations based on a previously prepaid value, instead of individual direct payments.

Punch cards work as a special type of coupon with a set number of visits or a gradually drawn-down amount (credit-based punch card). Applying the punch card code adjusts the reservation price accordingly, either by subtracting a defined amount or applying a discount of up to 100%. These codes don't have to be tied to a specific registered customer account, so they can be used easily and flexibly. They can also be restricted to specific events, so you clearly define which offered activities a punch card can be used for and which not.

Customer credit, on the other hand, works as a virtual wallet linked to a registered and logged-in customer account. A customer can top up their credit themselves online via a payment gateway (potentially with a bonus), or you can top it up manually in the administration, for example when paying in cash at reception. A credit wallet can in principle also have an expiration set.

Both solutions can be used effectively together with online payments, where the whole process of purchasing punch cards or credit can be fully automated. There are many possibilities, and it always depends on your specific settings and how you think through how and under what rules these customer-loyalty tools will work for your particular type of business.

Waiting list

If there's high demand for an event, it can be useful to let a customer "join" as a waiting-list candidate. That customer then waits until they receive information (e-mail, SMS) that their turn has come and their reservation has become a full reservation.

Don't lose customers just because an event is already fully booked – let them sign up for a waiting list and automatically notify them as soon as a place opens up for them because an earlier customer cancels their reservation.

The waiting list feature lets customers express interest in a reservation even when an event no longer has free capacity. A reservation doesn't get created for them at that point yet – the system simply records their interest, including their details. As soon as the corresponding capacity becomes available (e.g. another customer cancels their reservation), the system automatically picks a waiting-list candidate from the queue based on order and capacity and creates a standard reservation for them with everything that entails – sending a confirmation, a possible payment request, cancellation rules, and so on. If a candidate on the waiting list doesn't get a spot, the system no longer notifies them any further.

This feature is only available for the Full single event type and must first be enabled and configured for the specific event.

Event: Interval

This event type allows opening hours to be split into regular time slots. Customers book one or more consecutive time slots according to their own needs. One of the most widely used and most efficient event types.

Interval event type

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If you offer services in regular time slots (60 minutes, 90 minutes, etc.), this is the ideal event type, offering a simple and clear booking process.

The Interval event type lets you define a time range within a single day and split it into smaller, regular chunks. On the reservation page, a customer chooses these specific time slots, which can also follow on from one another, extending their reservation according to the defined rules.

This event type is typically suitable for sports facilities and sports complexes, consulting and advisory services, wellness, or a sauna.

Dynamic pricing

Conditional prices, price variants, discount codes, and so on – this is all part of the extensive options for how the price of a reservation is calculated. Combined with online payment, it's a significant business and marketing tool.

Dynamic pricing

more in the documentation

Set prices for customers exactly to match your offering – different customer categories, discounts for longer bookings or bookings made well in advance, discount coupons, and any combination of all of these.

The price of a reservation in the reenio system doesn't have to be just a single fixed number – the system provides tools to price your offering intelligently and precisely, in line with how your business works. You can set different pricing categories, for example admission for an individual or a family, which are then automatically factored into the reservation based on the customer's choice.

On top of that, you can tailor the price to the specific circumstances of the reservation – for example, giving a discount to customers who book well in advance, or setting a different rate for a longer stay or rental. Thanks to a custom booking form, you can then easily offer add-on services or a discount for a selected group of customers.

For marketing campaigns and controlled access to selected events, discount coupons are useful, with their own settings for validity and number of uses – whether it's a one-off promotion, a loyalty discount, or a closed group for whom you only open up an event when the corresponding code is used.

The power of this pricing approach lies in the fact that all these tools can be combined and used together as needed. The final price always reflects exactly how you want to offer your services and what the customer themselves chooses.

Notifications

Keeping customers informed is one of the key functions of any system. The ability to send a customer confirmation of a reservation being created, cancelled, or paid, or a reminder about it, is thus an integral part of the reenio system.

The reservation system can automatically inform customers, as well as admins and employees, about what's happening around reservations – you can set up system notifications according to your needs and the way you operate.

System notifications are automatic e-mails and SMS messages that the system sends on behalf of your reservation page without any further action on your part. These include confirmation of a successful reservation, confirmation of cancellation, confirmation of payment, reservation approval, a PDF with reservation codes, a reminder of an upcoming event, and more.

For each event type in the settings, you determine which channel it should be sent through – e-mail, SMS, or both – and, if relevant, how far in advance. For example, a reminder about an upcoming event can be sent 24 hours and also 3 hours in advance. Sending, of course, assumes you have the corresponding customer contact details available.

  • For customers

    All communication and information from the system to the customer, including a reminder so a reservation doesn't lapse unnecessarily.

  • For administrators

    To provide a basic overview of what's happening in the system without needing to constantly check and log into the administration.

  • For employees

    Ideal when a specific employee needs to be notified that a reservation for their services has been made and they need to plan for it.

Unlike custom messages, these are messages with a fixed, predefined content reflecting reservation information – their content or form cannot be freely edited, only when and to whom they are sent can be configured.

Custom booking forms

When the standard details collected from a customer during booking aren't enough, the solution is simple. Booking forms can be extended with custom fields that a customer may or must fill in while booking.

Custom booking forms

more in the documentation

Find out everything you need about customers right at the time of booking – extend the standard form with your own fields and tailor the form to a specific event and type of service.

Custom booking forms let you extend the standard reservation form (name, e-mail, phone) with any additional fields your business needs – from checkboxes, through selecting from options, entering text, all the way to uploading a file (e.g. a photo of the customer or a scanned confirmation). It's also possible to collect specialized data, where the system takes care of validating the correct format.

Individual custom fields can be required, or only shown based on the reserved capacity or a previously selected value. A special group is formed by form fields that affect the reservation price – which makes it easy to handle, for example, a surcharge for renting equipment, a discount for members, or a price adjustment for an above-standard scope of service.

A form can be assigned to a single event, or set globally so it automatically applies to all events on the reservation page. Working with custom forms is therefore very simple while also offering very broad possibilities for use.

Data entered in a custom booking form is saved as part of the specific reservation and can also be included in an export to Excel, and worked with further as needed.

Flexibility of resources and events

Resources and events let you create various combinations of events, services, or places within a single reservation page. Under one roof, you can effectively cover a one-off large event as well as regular hourly bookings.

Flexibility of resources and events

more in the documentation

Run an arbitrarily varied range of services on a single reservation page – one-off events, recurring courses, space rentals, and ticket sales all at the same time? The reenio reservation system can cover even these complex business models.

The reenio reservation system is not limited to just a single type of offering – within one page, you can create any number of resources (places, services, employees) and assign each of them the type of event that best suits that particular offering. This means an hourly court rental via interval events, a monthly yoga course as a full sequence, a one-off seminar as a full single event, and the sale of punch cards or gift coupons, can all run side by side – all on one reservation page and in one administration.

Clarity for such a varied offering is provided by a navigation hub, which can be set up as a multi-step guide, walking the customer through it step by step (e.g. first choosing a service, then an employee or branch).

Last but not least, thanks to collision protection over time, the system also automatically makes sure the same resource (e.g. a specific employee or room) never ends up in two reservations at once, even when it's used across different event and resource types.

Also suitable for your business

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Are you wondering if an online reservation system is right for you? Check out the FREQUENT QUESTIONS or the DOCUMENTATION pages and try out the reenio system.