Service includes features & support needed to operate successful passport programs
ST. HELENA, CA
CellarPass, the leading guest management platform that makes it easy for wineries and tasting rooms to sell tickets and accept reservations online, has announced the official launch of their new passport management platform, enabling passport event organizers to run their events more efficiently and to better understand their attendees through business intelligence.
“We’ve been studying winetasting passports across the country for several years now and have documented what works and what definitely doesn’t”, says Jonathan Elliman, co-founder and chief technology officer of CellarPass. “We didn’t want to stop at just providing a better ticketing platform, we wanted an end-to-end solution that would provide the proper business intelligence to event organizers that starts the moment a guest signals the intent to purchase a passport”, continues Elliman.
An enterprise ticketing solution that has been in the making for two years.
In order to make sure that the new platform was flexible enough to handle any size or frequency (from weekend to a year-long) passport programs, CellarPass partnered with regional organizations to help test the platform’s capability and ease of use from both an event organizer and consumer’s perspective. “Designing a platform that provides the proper features and functionality for small to large-scale passport programs was a delicate balance of delivering an intuitive interface and providing the key features other platforms do not have without overcomplicating the ticket sales side of the process”, says Jonathan Elliman. “This is where we saw many of the available ticketing platforms fell short, or requiring way too much information as part of the purchase process. This no doubt led to plenty of lost sales from our perspective.”
During CellarPass’ research, they found most passport sales were run through a typical eCommerce platform that comes up short on consumer experience and data capture because they have a “one-size-fits-all” feature set. And what was found since these systems lacked the proper guest and event management features, participating tasting rooms received little to no understanding of who their guests are or where they’ve visited. “For annual programs to grow sales year over year, managing the marketing, sales and understanding physical traffic in one system is the key to success”, says Jonathan.
One of the pilot members of the CellarPass passport program has already recorded growth in the early stages of their campaign which is a testament to CellarPass’ successful design and development practices. "The Yountville Chamber of Commerce is proud to be working with CellarPass on the "Taste Life Here" Winetasting Passport program”, says Sarah Farlie, Marketing & Social Media Manager at Yountville Chamber of Commerce. “The passport program is something that we have wanted to bring to Yountville for quite some time. Teaming up with CellarPass just made absolute sense”, continues Farlie. “The Chamber, our participating business members and guests have found the technology easy to use and are extremely happy with the program. The Passport provides a unique and fun way for our guests to experience our small, walkable town.”
“Trinitas Cellars is very excited to work with CellarPass utilizing their passport platform for our participation in the Crusher Wine District’s Wine Hopper Weekend events”, says Betsy Busch, Proprietor & Controller for Trinitas Cellars. “Given the close proximity of our participating tasting rooms, it makes perfect sense to have a passport program that allows guests to purchase a passport online that is good for tastings at multiple wineries”, says Busch. “We love it because it allows for easy check-in at each winery, create our own check-in offers and better knowledge of our guests during check in.”
As part of the passport management solution, CellarPass developed a check-in app, allowing each of the participating tasting rooms to see real-time sales and traffic data. “This eliminates the ‘black box’ of consumer participation, allowing the tasting rooms to use this information to their advantage”, says Elliman. “We’ve added customizable features that allow each of the tastings rooms to apply ‘gamification’ to the program which makes this really exciting. This additional ‘layer’ encourages guests to visit each of the participating tasting rooms through different hidden incentives that are revealed upon check in with our app” says Jonathan.
About CellarPass
Launched in 2010, CellarPassSM is your online travel agency that makes it easy to plan your next vacation to wine country. Explore our site, mobile app while following us on Twitter and Facebook to discover new destinations and getaway ideas, get information about tasting rooms, wineries, hotels, car rentals, activities and more. Wherever you go, CellarPass provides a wealth of information that makes it very easy to plan and book your next trip to wine country.
The CellarPass Reservations iOS App is available for download in the Apple App Store here.
For more information, please contact Sarah Elliman at (707) 255-4390, or email media@cellarpass.com. Follow CellarPass on Facebook at http://facebook.com/cellarpass and on Twitter at http://twitter.com/cellarpass to get the freshest updates.
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