Understanding the impact of Open Booking
In April, Sport England and the Open Data Institute issued a call for proposals for organisations to implement the Open Booking API specification to help us understand and demonstrate its impact.
We’re pleased to announce we’ll be working with four organisations between now and the end of June.
Across these four organisations, we hope that this testing will help unlock over 1.8 million bookable opportunities per month, which equates to over £3 million worth of bookings.
The awardees are:
bookinglab
bookinglab delivers booking solutions to public sector organisations, working with organisations such as Kent County Council, West Berkshire Council and Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council.
Fitune
Fitune is an all-in-one platform for fitness providers, working with organisations such as Cumbria Strength & Conditioning, MooiFit, British Naturism and Keep Well.
School Space
School Space is a social enterprise that works with schools to rent facilities to the public. School Space work with around 60 schools across London and the south including Harris Academy Falconwood and Harris Academy Orpington (both of which have major all weather pitch sporting facilities) and The Bobby Moore Academy on London’s Olympic Park.
Spawtz
Spawtz provides software for league, venue and competition managers in the sport and physical activity sector. Their customers include indoor and outdoor sports operators across the UK.
Why are we funding this work?
The Open Booking API is an open, non-proprietary technical standard that defines a common API interface for managing transactions between a booking system and front-end brokers in the sports and physical activity sector.
Developed as part of the OpenActive initiative, the Open Booking API has passed a previous round of technical road-testing. However, we wanted to do further research to discover:
- How feasible and effective is the use of a centrally-provided test suite in ensuring adherence to specifications?
- What is the value of implementing the API to booking systems, both in terms of immediate revenue and more broadly?
- What is the relationship between the cost of implementation and the value of the bookings this makes possible, in the short- and long-term?
- In what areas of implementation is further support most crucial?
This testing period will run until the end of June 2021, when we hope to share the results with the wider community. If you’re interested in finding out more about the Open Booking API, please contact: hello@openactive.io
