Corruption in the Booking System - Yes or No

[Mel]

Is there any time frame as of when SP started to prefer having the agencies chopped from handling the bookings?
The reason I'm asking is that my October / November 2014 booking (obviously done in November /December 2013)
worked well via an agency based in Cape Town, but my Easter 2015 booked in April and May 2014 was a flipping nightmare.

[harrys]

Something really fishy is happening in SANparks, we stayed at Maroela this past week and every night at least 8 to 10 stands where open, but on their website it shows fully booked

[Flutterby]

We've often found that with the bugalows too harrys...you battle to get accommodation but when you arrive there are lots of empty bungalows!!

[Richprins]

If one reads back a bit, tour companies have standard block-bookings for a range of accommodation. This precedes the normal public bookings time -wise...don't care what SP says!

If they don't fill it, which is obviously often the case, they lose the deposit on leftover units a certain time before pitching with the rest. Theoretically, at least. Personally I believe they don't lose anything, and even if they do, they would obviously book at base rate occupancy, ie 2 per campsite or unit, which could house as many as 6 tourists should their customers actually be contracted...they don't know either, more than a year in advance?


So losing a deposit of half the amount for a base-booking is not the end of the world for them, and they probably don't even bother cancelling before their deadline is up, as customers may still enlist a day or two before the date anyway.

They make the real money off the hospitality side of tours, not the accommodation!

Another thing is that camps report a constant number of units "under renovation", hence not available for bookings...which has been alleged to be a grey area, and needs to be audited.

All above is why one has a tremendously good chance of getting accommodation in a camp on a 24-hour basis, just pitch up and stay within cellphone range and enquire constantly!

[RobertT]

Don't think they lose deposits, they could just move the booking out just before the 60 days of final deposit needs to be paid.

[Richprins]

Ja, I think their system precludes the deposit thing anyway...a corporate deal, so to speak. 60 days is also maybe worth ignoring, as customers may register up to a short time before held bookings, according to company promises on their various websites, for example?

[Bushcraft]

It's funny that it's already the 3rd of November and the availability section of the SANParks website is still disabled for October 2015 It's meant to be visible from the 1st of November

[General Gump]

Were you trying to book Satara for us ?

[Bushcraft]

Were you trying to book Satara for us ?

Are you around next year October school holidays

Let me explain my theory

The availability section of the SANParks website has always been viewable 11 months in advance from 12:01am on the 1st of each month, but this has been a major headache for them in my opinion as it was clearly obvious that key units were “booked” prior to the official opening at 7:30am and many screen dumps from many different people proved this. (Especially over the holiday periods)

SANParks avoided direct answers and ignored the screen dump proof, but IMO still wanted the priority booking to be able to continue without having to answer for it.

How would I do it I would disable the availability section from the general public until 7:30am on the 1st, so there’s no proof of key units being booked prior to the official opening

On Saturday the 1st of this month October 2015 should have been viewable but is only viewable this morning. Online bookings have now also suddenly been moved until the day after other methods of booking (as of a few months ago) when they used to be 10 months in advance, so if questioned one could comment that the viewing of the availability section is linked to online booking.

Maybe it was just another convenient glitch in their system Time will tell

[Richprins]

Makes sense!