Has Atelier Sawyer built a booking website that works?
Yes. Donkey Dreamland, a donkey charity in Mijas, had visits booked but never paid for, card payments that could not be matched to anything, and care plans on a whiteboard in a shed. I built a website in Spanish, English, French, and German, with online booking and donations, and a portal that runs the day: a Today view, a weekly rota, care records, enquiries, and the finances. The first two paid bookings arrived soon after launch.
Where they started
Donkey Dreamland runs on goodwill: the donkeys, the visitors who come to meet them, and the volunteers who look after both. The systems had not kept up.
- Visitors booked, but nothing asked them to pay, so some never did.
- Card payments arrived through SumUp with nothing to say whether each one was a visit, a donation, or something from the shop.
- Records were on paper. The donkeys' care plans were on a whiteboard in a shed.
- Nobody could see, in one place, who was volunteering when.
What I did
I wanted to volunteer, and the most useful thing I had to give was a system. So I gave my time to building one.
For visitors
- A website in Spanish, English, French, and German, the languages its visitors actually speak.
- Booking that takes payment at the time of booking, through SumUp, with a confirmation and an invoice sent automatically.
- Online donations through the same system.
- A closure calendar, so nobody turns up on a day the sanctuary is shut.
- A visitor chatbot that answers questions in the visitor's own language. Its answers are checked against the sanctuary's own information and against recognised sources such as ZSL.
For the people who run it
- A Today view: who is coming, who is working, and what needs doing.
- A weekly rota for volunteers.
- Tasks and training, so new volunteers know what to do and how to do it.
- Each donkey's care records, in one place, instead of on the whiteboard.
- Enquiries and a contact list, with consent recorded.
- Finance and reports, with every payment matched to the booking, donation, or sale it belongs to.
The result
The first two paid bookings arrived soon after the site went live. Every payment now has a home, every donkey has a record, and the whiteboard has retired.
What this means for you
If you sell visits, tickets, or experiences, the same problems turn up: bookings that are not paid for, payments you cannot reconcile, and a team running on memory. A website that takes payment at the moment of booking fixes the first; a portal fixes the rest.
- See what a website includes: Websites, from £3,250.
- See how I choose and set up systems: Digitise, from £2,950.
- More on experiences, attractions, and visitor venues: Experiences.
- Running a charity: how I work with charities.
Talk it through
Tell me what you sell and how people book it now. I'll tell you honestly whether a new site would pay for itself.