Williamsburg Hotel Motel Association Shuts Call Center

The Williamsburg (Virginia) Hotel Motel Association has reportedly ceased operations of its customer call center. Operations were halted in mid-August due to a lack of funds. The call center, which had been operating since 1976, provided visitors to the area with assistance on tourist issues. In 2009, the Williamsburg Area Destination Marketing Committee, a local regional destination marketing organization, ceased using the WHMA as its booking agency, which cut into the organization's funds.

The Wiliamsburg Yorktown Daily is reporting this week that funding for the call center was supported by the commissions the WHMA received as the local booking engine for the area prior to 2009; some funding also came from sports group reservations, according to WHMA executive director, Priscilla Caldwell.

Unfortunately, given the rising prevalence of national booking engines, many of these sports groups chose to move its reservations to a national agency.

“In the absence of the majority of leisure and sports reservations, the internal reservations system is not self-supporting at this time,” Caldwell said.

It was costing the WHMA about $200,000 a year to maintain its call center, including a staff of 15 up until recently. Just prior to the shutdown, however, the call center employed only two agents.

The Tourist Information Center created and funded by the WHMA in 2010 will remain open and will continue to help visitors, said Caldwell. The Information Center helps area visitors purchase tickets to all area attractions and provides information on local shopping, dining and lodging facilities. The center also helps visitors make hotel and restaurant reservations.

After WADMC moved to California-based ARES for its booking engine, the WHMA eventually chose its own new reservation search engine called BookDirect by JackRabbit Systems, reported the Williamsburg Yorktown Daily. Unlike a traditional third-party system such as ARES, which books rooms for local hotels and keeps a fee for the service, BookDirect functions more like a search engine for visitors who can use it to find a hotel and then book directly with the hotel’s preferred website, thus cutting out the third-party site. BookDirect charges a flat annual lease rate for its service instead of using a commission or fee system.

The WHMA will continue to maintain BookDirect, Caldwell says.

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