Date:  11 June 2018

Bookings for New Zealand’s nine Great Walks will open over the next two weeks for the 2018/19 season, starting with the Rakiura Track tomorrow (12 June). 

“Registering in advance should simplify the booking process and give people a better chance of securing their preferred dates,” says DOC’s booking service manager Ross Shearer. 

“Once customers have created their user profile, they can then manage their Great Walks bookings online which means being able to set-up, search, modify and cancel bookings. They will also be able to access the system via mobile devices.” 

The new booking system has been developed for approximately $3m as part of a major project to make DOC’s technology more customer focused, by consolidating all DOCs bookable experiences, improving ease of use, reducing transaction costs and allowing new commercial models (eg differential pricing). The project is part of the Department’s work to improve the overall visitor experience including how people select and book activities. 

“The booking service is more intuitive and quicker to use than the previous one. Importantly, our customers will receive safety information before embarking on their trips including an update about the current condition of their chosen track,” says Ross Shearer. 

The service is hosted on Amazon Web Services, enabling more people to make bookings at the same time without the system slowing down or showing errors. This should make it easier for people trying to complete bookings in the first few hours of each walk opening, explains Ross Shearer. 

“The opening today is phase one of the project, and we will be increasing the facilities covered by the booking service over the next two to three years. Ultimately, all DOC’s bookable facilities will move to the new service. We will be evaluating the performance of the system and customer satisfaction over the next year,” says Ross Shearer.

Sign up today or check when bookings open for each Great Walk by visiting Great Walks on DOC's website. 

Further information

Creating a user account should take a couple of minutes. To sign up people will need to provide first and last names, email address, home address and phone number. No additional documents are required for this.

All other bookable DOC facilities (beside those on the Great Walks) will continue to open as normal on our current system for the 2018/19 summer season.

Allowing more innovation and flexibility, the service also enables the Department to trial differential pricing for international visitors on four popular Great Walks for the 2018/19 summer season. Find out more about the pricing trial on DOC’s website.

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