A recent addition to the Grouvia family is a small community vacation rental network in the popular tourist town of Colonial Beach, Virginia.
The Colonial Beach Cottage Owners Association (a.k.a. CBCOA) has recently joined Grouvia to help manage their network’s business. At their quarterly board meeting last week, Grouvia was introduced as the new online tool the CBCOA will use to help streamline their event planning and communications needs. The addition was met with much enthusiasm by the board members.
Glenda Chiarello, the CBCOA’s treasurer and owner of Marina Sunset Cottage, is optimistic about Grouvia’s future. “I think Grouvia is an excellent tool for group management, and the CBCOA will see a lot of benefit from using it. It seems to have many features that will help automate some of the time-consuming tasks we are doing manually now. Since we’re all volunteers, anything that can save us time is very valuable.”
One unexpected benefit is the ability for the association to collect payments online via Grouvia. The CBCOA publishes a cottage directory every year, the cost of which is partially subsidized by local businesses who pay a fee to be included in the booklet. The directory is distributed through the local chamber and at many shops and restaurants in the town, as well as through other tourism channels throughout Virginia.
Grouvia’s event management feature was used to create a deadline event for advertising commitments. Advertisers can use the online reservation feature to commit to their ad and pay for it online. The Grouvia reservation initiates an automated notification to the board members who are responsible for handling the brochure design and printing.
Lisa Pecunia, Grouvia’s designer and company founder is especially excited about the addition of CBCOA as a member of the growing Grouvia family. “They have found a unique use for Grouvia which we hadn’t thought of. People are very resourceful, and the CBCOA’s creativity in finding a way to make this work for them is very powerful. Grouvia was built with a very flexible interface, and this new use is an indicator that Grouvia will be useful in all sorts of ways that are yet to be discovered.”
Since Grouvia is a relative newcomer on the scene, the company hopes the word will spread among other vacation rental communities in tourist towns across the country.
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I love the beach, can’t wait for summer to come.