Reservation Management Tips for Severe Weather Preparedness

In the event of severe weather or natural disasters, we are committed to ensuring your park is well-equipped with essential information for timely preparation. To assist you, our team has compiled a severe weather preparedness checklist for your reservation management, for before and after the weather has impacted your park. 

Preparing for Severe Weather

Export and Print Reservation and Arrival Information

Keeping an offline copy of reservation information can be most helpful in case of power or internet outages. Pull a list of all guests expected to be in the park/arrive during the date range selected.

Review and Print Guest Contact Information

Keep an offline copy of the contact information for the guests you have in park during the same date range is also beneficial in the case of power and internet outages. This information can be exported and printed in your reservation management system. 

During Severe Weather

Block Sites and Update Availability as Needed

In the event you need to temporarily stop additional bookings you can close out a group of sites. You can also turn off your online booking all together as needed. 

Communicating with your Guests 

In severe weather scenarios internet and online access may be different depending on the location of the individual. Consider posting a custom message on your reservation portal to provide guests with important information and/or booking instructions if you have turned off online booking temporarily. 

You can also send out mass messaging to your guests via email or text to communicate park and maintenance updates as needed. 

Following the Severe Weather

Perform any Cancellations and Refunds

You may find that you need to cancel reservations, or perform refunds. Every reservation management system does these differently, below are specific for Firefly Reservations: 

1. Cancellation Rules setup and User Guide - Speed up your cancellation procedures by setting up the new cancellation rules feature ahead of time

2. Cancel a Reservation - In a pinch, you can always continue to cancel a reservation manually

3. Refund a Payment - Helpful information if you will be issuing refunds to your guests.

4. Reservation Credits - Helpful information if you will be issuing reservation credits to your guests. 

Reassess Custom Messaging and Reservation System Changes

When getting ready for the weather, you may have added site blocks, messaging to your reservation portal, or turned off your online booking options. When your park is ready, these are all great to update to re-welcome your guests back to your park, and start taking reservations again. 

Updating Guests of Re-Openings

When your system is back online, it's time to share with your guests the news! 

We know that in the midst of severe weather and natural disasters there are no words to help the severity of situations but our Firefly team is here to help with your reservation management. 

Here is a help article with links to how to do all of the items mentioned up above, and if you need more help you can reach out: support@fireflyreservations.com.