How to Take Bookings for Holiday Clubs and Summer Camps (UK)

A holiday club or summer camp lives or dies on logistics: the right number of children per day, the right staff ratios, and every parent’s consent and medical details to hand before the first morning. Online booking is what turns that scramble into a system. Here’s how to set it up before the school holidays land.

Make every day (or week) its own bookable session

The single biggest difference between camp bookings and a one-off event is that you’re selling the same thing over and over — Monday, Tuesday, week one, week two — each with its own capacity. Set each day or week up as a separate session with a firm cap based on your staff ratios and floor space, and let parents self-serve into the slots that still have room. Real-time availability stops you over-filling a Wednesday while Friday sits empty, and it ends the phone tag of “have you got space on the 5th?”.

Most clubs offer a mix of shapes: single days, full weeks at a discount, and half-day or extended-hours options. Model each as its own ticket type so a parent can book exactly what they need, and use the week rate to nudge people into booking the whole block — better for your planning and theirs.

Take payment up front to protect cash flow

Staff, insurance and DBS-checked ratios are all committed weeks before the holidays start, so the money needs to arrive before the children do. Up-front payment at the point of booking is the simplest way to keep cash flow in your favour and cut no-shows — a parent who has paid for Tuesday turns up on Tuesday. For pricier full-week or residential camps, a deposit at booking with the balance due before the start date is a fair compromise that still secures the place. Running your own payment account (e.g. Stripe) means the money lands directly in your bank rather than being held by a marketplace until the camp is over.

Collect consent and medical details at booking

The forms are the part everyone dreads on the first morning. Move them to the point of booking instead. For each child, gather:

• Child’s name and age — so you can group by age and check ratios.
• Parent/carer contact and an emergency contact — at least two reachable numbers.
• Allergies, medical conditions and additional needs — the details your staff must know before the child arrives.
• Photo and activity consent — a clear yes/no you can act on.
• Collection arrangements — who is allowed to pick the child up, and any password you use.

Capturing this when the booking is made means you arrive on day one with a complete register, not a pile of half-filled paper forms.

Handle siblings and groups in one go

Parents rarely book one child. Let them add multiple children to a single booking and pay once, rather than running through checkout three times. The same applies to friend groups and childminders booking several families at once — a smooth multi-child flow is the difference between a completed booking and an abandoned basket. Keep each child’s details separate within the booking so your register stays accurate even when one payment covers four kids.

Set a fair illness and cancellation policy

Children get ill, and a clear, published policy saves you an inbox full of one-off pleas. Decide up front what happens when a parent cancels: a credit towards another week is often kinder to your cash flow than a cash refund, and many clubs offer a free transfer to a later date beyond a cut-off. Put the policy in front of parents before they pay so it’s part of the deal. Our guide to refunds and rescheduling walks through how to write one that stays on the right side of UK consumer law.

Check children in fast on the morning

Drop-off is a 20-minute crush, so the register needs to move quickly. A QR-code check-in lets staff scan each booking from a phone as families arrive — no clipboard, no hunting down a name — and flags anyone not booked for that day. It works the same way for a venue with patchy signal, since a good scanner caches the list and syncs later. Our free QR check-in guide covers the setup, which needs no special hardware.

Keep the fees off your margin

Holiday-club margins are tight and volumes are high — a per-booking platform fee across a whole summer adds up fast. Check whether a booking platform takes a percentage of every transaction and who pays it. Ticketable charges a 0% platform fee — you only pay your card processor at cost — so a fully booked August doesn’t quietly leak its profit to a middleman. For the broader picture on setting sessions up, see our guide to online booking for activity venues.

Frequently asked questions