Case Study: Woodlands Caravan Park
The Problem:
Woodlands Caravan Park is a small, friendly park near Southport. They pride themselves on staying ahead of the game, looking for ways to generate additional revenue and ensuring that the services they offer are the services their customers are looking for.
Comment:
“Selling caravans is becoming more difficult as each season goes by. We felt that providing a service such as internet access would be useful. it’s also becoming increasingly important to continue to improve our park and make sure that we offer the services that our customers, both current and future, are looking for. We sent out a questionnaire to our existing customers about what improvements to the site they would like to see, and when we received the replies back, we were surprised to find that most of our customers had put internet access in one of the top two places.”
“We saw an advert for Park & Marine in the BH&HPA journal, rang them and they came to show us what we could do and surveyed the park. Park & Marine then explained that they had a solution for us and how it would work. We agreed a way forward and then ordered the network from them.”
Andrew Chrysler, Managing Director, Woodlands Caravan Par.
The Solution:
As normal, a gateway was installed to control and allow access onto the network. This is designed to create a secure environment that helps to manage user accounts and provide access for the service. Holiday home owners on the park are given access by purchasing a voucher that can be valid for different time periods. Every time a customer logs on to the wireless network, or when a connection is made to the network, the user is prompted to enter the user name and password. If they don’t, the connection is refused. Security is paramount when considering installing a wireless network, and a gateway such as this helps to make the users of the network secure and prevents unauthorised access. Repeaters were then sited on existing buildings and points around the park to repeat the signal and ensure accurate wireless coverage across the whole area.
Finally:
“We are very happy with what we have had installed. Out of the caravans we have sold this year, having wireless internet access made the crucial difference to three sales. It is what we expected would happen and we’re pleased we’ve done it!
Our customers are extremely happy to have internet access, which they have found invaluable in today's world of internet shopping. One caravan owner has carried out an immense amount of research into their Family Tree, because the wi-fi access has let them spend their leisure time on line.
At the current rate of subscriptions, we expect the capital investment to be repaid within 3 years, and after that it's one more profit centre. We have found the system extremely easy to administer, and our customers have not reported any problems in using it. I would recommend wi-fi, and in particular Park and Marine, to anyone.”
