The live reservation system for events and attractions, Booking Online, has broken into the US market.
The UK company has now been granted LLC status in the US, permitting it to set up its operations across the Atlantic, after a long process that began with a presence at the last face-to-face IAAPA show.
Despite the economic impact of the pandemic, the company worked through the UK’s Department of Trade to secure its accreditation. Now instead of making phone calls to secure a booking, customers can go on-line to the company’s website.
The market is much wider than the attractions industry, of course, and many services are now available through the network. But managing director Eddie Daniels and creative director Aftab Ali took a team across the Atlantic to start the ball rolling with an industry that they know well.
Daniels ran his own inflatable attractions company and sought to streamline its operation, bringing in Ali’s help and that resulted in the web-based solution.
“It tripled turnover in the first 12 months,” said Daniels, “making the running of the business easy because you weren’t answering the phones. Now we have a flood of companies seeking our help to build a website and use our online booking and diary management system.”
After only a short period of operating in the US the company has tripled its customer base and recruited an enlarged customer support team. To do that, they needed to be accredited as an LLC (equivalent to an Ltd in the UK).
“Getting LLC status was challenging, but we had great support from our local development agency (in Rochdale) and the government department. We had strong relationships with UK payment processors and banking, but the US has different regulations so to work there we had to have that LLC label,” said Eddie.
Global agreements are now in place with WorldPay FIS, Square and GoCardless, so Booking Online USA LLC can now trade efficiently, serve global customers and take its 10-year history on to the next level. It now supplies booking systems to over 3,500 event rental businesses, processes over three million bookings valued at over $850m across 17 countries.
Pictured: Booking Online’s team at the last face-to-face IAAPA show; Daniels and Ali are second and third from left
