By Scott Rossiter, Assistant Director of Guest Services

The Camp’s new online registration system now provides guests with an easy-to-use, 24-hours-a-day, way to place reservations for upcoming WBC events.

Last April, the online event reservation system went live with an initial focus on summer events like Day Camps, W-Bar-B youth camps and Horsemanship camps. Within a few weeks, the online catalog grew to include Marriage and Engaged Encounters, Dad & Me Weekends, and the Philip Yancey and Tony Campolo Weekend.

The next big leap forward came in July, with opening day for The Lights of Christmas reservations, giving guests the ability to purchase Overnight Getaways, Baylight Dinner Theatre, season passes, and Stage II theater tickets online. In years past, general admission “e-tickets” were available through a third party vendor. This year online General Admission ticket sales will process through our own website!

The growth in our online reservation system over the past six months reflected in the following statistics:

• Number of products in our online catalog has grown from 38 to 314 (events, electives and The Lights of Christmas tickets).

• On October 14, we processed our 690th order, accounting for nearly 1,500 products purchased. These included 201 adult/family events, 303 summer camps, as well as 127 overnight rooms and 466 dinner/dessert theatre seats for The Lights of Christmas. In all, we have processed over $200,000 dollars in event fees online.

A bit of trivia: Our first online order came on March 18, 2008 – two weeks prior to our actual launch date. A mom found her way into our “test area” while the online shopping cart was still in development. She promised she was not a hacker, but did manage to purchase a Day Camp session! Our first order after “going live” was on April 2, 2008 – also a Day Camp purchase.

While the full impact of online registration will take more time to realize, we can already see positive changes ahead. For churches reserving blocks of housing at 2009 Men’s and Women’s events, your participants will have the ability to see which housing your church has reserved and select it using a simple drop down menu when they register online. This will significantly reduce the need for partnership churches to collect registration forms and payments and improve the accuracy of registration information.

Online registration has even reshaped how we handle phone-in orders. In the past, we needed to fill out a registration form by hand and take the credit card information so we could run the charge later. Now most phone-in orders are processed right onto the online reservation system by our staff while on the phone with the customer. Typing in the order reduces the length of the call. The customer’s credit charge runs instantly and is very secure. Processing phone orders through the online system also allows these guests to log into the website to view and print their order.

With the increased efficiency of online registration, we have been able to begin receiving registrations for the 2009 Summer Camps in November – two months earlier than in years past! Parents and Grandparents, you can now give the gift of a 2009 Day Camp, W-Bar-B or Horsemanship Camp this Christmas! Be sure and visit us any time of the day or night at warmbeach.com, and see for yourself how fun and convenient online registration can be