OPERATOR PERSPECTIVE
For every child who joins a class one day sooner, we drive an additional £1 in revenue.
Quantifying value In this respect, online booking provides Parkwood Leisure with invaluable data, says Godfrey, helping the operator optimise pool time around defined needs and justify its decisions with local authority partners. He explains: “We’ve introduced online booking for swimming lessons, which benefits parents as they can easily manage everything online. But the dedicated automated waiting list facility, which notifies a parent as soon as a space comes available in class, also helps us over and above freeing up our swimming managers. It allows us to quantify demand for swimming lessons, and in turn both the social value and commercial upside of adding more lessons.
“The social value is about the benefits of teaching a child to swim in the face of the UK’s drowning statistics. In terms of commercial upside, for every child who joins a class one day sooner, we drive an additional £1 in revenue.” He concludes: “Of course we’ll still offer casual community swim, but with local authorities also under financial pressure, this will likely continue to be rationalised. “I think all operators just want the option to flex their programmes, and everything associated with that, to try and optimise their pool space as far as possible.”
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STATE OF THE UK SWIMMING INDUSTRY REPORT 2023
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