Booking and reservations
Booking software for Virgin Islands businesses.
Reservation systems for tours, charters, beach clubs, rentals, and stays across St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix. Take deposits online, hold capacity properly, and stop paying a percentage of every booking you make.
What it covers
Different operations, different booking problems.
A charter, a beach club, and a villa all take reservations, and almost nothing else about them is the same. The rules are where the work is.
Booking system for tours and activities
Timed departures, a hard capacity ceiling, waivers signed before anyone arrives, and a manifest the guide can actually work from at the dock. Weather cancellations handled once rather than by twenty phone calls.
- Capacity that cannot be oversold
- Digital waivers
- Weather holds and rebooking
- Concierge and OTA bookings in the same list
Online booking for charters
Half day, full day, and private charters priced differently, with deposits taken at booking and the balance on the day. Crew see the passenger list on a phone, and the customer gets a confirmation that tells them where to actually meet the boat.
- Deposit now, balance later
- Private versus shared pricing
- Crew view on mobile
- Passenger manifest and check-in
Beach clubs, facilities, and day passes
A fixed daily ceiling, walk-ups and reservations sharing the same count, and staff at the gate who need to confirm payment in about two seconds without asking anyone.
- One live count across every channel
- Gate check-in
- Day pass and rental add-ons
- Occupancy reporting that holds up
Rooms, villas, and short stays
Nightly and weekly rates, seasonal pricing, minimum stays, and deposits. Usually the job is connecting what you already run rather than replacing it.
- Seasonal rate rules
- Minimum stay logic
- Deposit and balance schedule
- Connects to what you already use
The honest version
You might not need us.
Off-the-shelf booking platforms are good and most operators should start there. The questions below are the ones worth working through before anyone builds you anything.
Do I need custom booking software, or will an off-the-shelf platform do?
For most operators starting out, an off-the-shelf platform is the right answer, and we will tell you so. They are quick to set up, they work, and the monthly cost is small.
The question is how they charge. Most tour and activity platforms take a percentage of every booking, either from you or added to the customer's total. That is excellent when you are doing twenty bookings a month and expensive when you are doing eight hundred, because the cost scales with your success rather than with the work the software does.
Custom becomes worth considering when the commission starts to look like a salary, or when the platform cannot do something your operation actually requires.
When does building your own actually make sense?
Usually one of five reasons, and rarely price alone:
- Volume. Percentage fees have crossed the point where a fixed build pays for itself.
- Rules the platform will not bend to. Multi-island logistics, tiered deposits, crew assignment, capacity shared across several products.
- You need it joined to something else. Dispatch, accounting, a rental fleet, a POS.
- The customer experience matters. Booking on your own domain rather than being redirected to a platform with someone else's branding.
- You want the customer list. On some platforms it is not straightforwardly yours.
Can I take deposits online?
Yes, and it is usually the first thing operators ask for. A deposit at the time of booking with the balance collected on the day, or in advance, or a full payment for smaller bookings.
The part that matters locally is which processor you use. We build against the processor you already bank with rather than making you switch to something that assumes a mainland merchant account. If you are on Clover, that is straightforward.
Will it work when the internet drops?
Partly, and anyone who promises fully is overselling. Taking a payment needs a connection.
What we can do is design for the reality: pages light enough to load on weak cellular, check-in screens that work on a phone at the dock, manifests that can be pulled up before you leave signal, and nothing that fails badly when a request is slow.
How long does a booking system take to build?
A single booking flow for one product is usually four to eight weeks. Something with capacity rules, deposits, waivers, staff check-in, and reporting is more like two to four months, built in phases so you have something running before the whole thing is finished.
If you have a season opening, say so early. A fixed date is useful because it forces the conversation about what genuinely has to work on day one.
What does it cost?
A booking platform with payments, capacity rules, waivers, and staff check-in typically falls in the $10,000 to $25,000 range. Simpler booking pages for a single facility start lower. Systems that feed dispatch or connect several products run higher.
Every engagement is quoted in writing after we have watched how you take bookings today. Full ranges are on the FAQ.
Built here
The local details that break generic booking software.
Most reservation platforms are built for somewhere with one island, one ferry-free logistics chain, and mainland payment rails.
Here, a late ferry moves every pickup after it. Guests book from a cruise ship with patchy signal and a fixed window ashore. Concierges book on behalf of guests who then arrive as a different number of people. Hurricane season means bulk cancellations and rebooking that has to be done in an afternoon. And the payment processor you already bank with is the one the system has to use.
None of that is exotic. It is just Tuesday, and it is the difference between software that fits and software you work around.
Booking systems are built on Lime Book, the reservations product in the FruitStack family. Where an operation needs dispatch, rentals, or ordering alongside it, those connect rather than being bolted on.
Start here
Tell us how you take bookings today.
Even if that is a phone, a notebook, and a group chat. Especially if it is. We will tell you honestly whether you need something built or whether a platform will do.
How every engagement runs