Turning the tide: Geosparc supports the reopening of the hospitality industry with efficient software

Data specialist Geosparc offers cities and municipalities a readymade software solution for pavement café management. ‘As part of the reopening of cafés, bars and restaurants, the hospitality sector is looking for extra pavement café space,’ says Kris De Pril, CEO of Geosparc. ‘With Spotbooking, cities and municipalities can make it easier for business owners to apply for pavement café licences.’

The hospitality industry in Belgium is preparing for the reopening. As a result of the coronavirus measures, the hospitality industry finds itself forced to provide more square metres per customer. Extra pavement café space is a big part of this. An app by Geosparc accelerates the processing and approval of licence applications.

Efficient digital application process

Spotbooking enables companies and private individuals to apply for licences for the use of public space online, for events, a market stall or house move, for instance. And, local authority departments can process, make a recommendation about these licence applications and ensure they are being implemented, quickly and efficiently.

Geosparc has developed a pavement café module for Spotbooking. With the reopening of the hospitality industry, this module can considerably accelerate and improve the application process for pavement café licences. It allows users to set up approval flows, calculate prices and complete invoicing and payments in the system, among other things.

Customers

Local authorities who are already using Spotbooking can start using the pavement café module within a day. Those who are not yet using the app can be operational within five days of ordering it. Currently, several municipalities are already using Geosparc‘s software. Among those who have activated Spotbooking are Kortrijk, Hasselt, Turnhout, Lier, Leuven, Hamme, Brakel, Keerbergen, Wingene, Ninove, Zonhoven, Stabroek and Asse.

‘The application form for pavement licences is simple and comprehensive,’ says Luc Velghe, IT manager of the city of Kortrijk. ‘The applicant can submit the form digitally in no time and our departments can process it easily.’

‘The pavement café module makes applying for a licence a lot easier,’ says Elfie De Vits of the city of Ninove. ‘Firstly, for the business owner who can submit the application digitally. And secondly, for our employees. The automatic linking to GIPOD offers great added value.’ GIPOD (Generiek Informatieplatform Openbaar Domein) is the generic information platform for public space in Flanders, a government platform where information about roadworks and events in public space is exchanged.

Webinar demo

To support the restart of the economy, Geosparc is temporarily offering the software at a heavily reduced price. Until 30 June, cities and municipalities can activate the module for 499 euros for existing customers and 999 euros for new customers, with a monthly subscription fee of 99 euros.

Geosparc is organising webinars about the pavement café module Wednesday 10 June at 10:00 and on Monday 15 June at 14:00. Interested? Register on the website of Geosparc via https://www.geosparc.com/terrassenmodule-lockdown-promo

ABOUT GEOSPARC - www.geosparc.com

Geosparc makes the impact of policy predictable. Geosparc helps governments and companies gain insight and make the impact of decisions transparent via data. As a specialist in geospatial software, Geosparc offers policymakers a wide range of digital solutions to make policy processes run more efficiently and manage infrastructure better. Geosparc is located in Ghent and has 12 employees. The company is part of the Gumption Group.