Chester Visitor Centre, on Vicars Lane, opposite the amphitheatre, will be the new home to Chester’s unique tourism attraction and event ticketing office, Chester Box Office where consumers can buy tickets at face value (no 3rd party booking fees or mark-ups) using latest technologies mixed with the conventional, face-to-face customer service.

The Chester Visitor Centre was an early victim of public-sector cut-backs closing nearly a year ago. However, three businesses (Chester Boat, Chester Heritage Tours and BusyBus) that heavily relied on this City visitor gateway have joined forces to create a unique and revolutionary private-sector business, aptly named Chester Visitor Centre Partnership (CVCP)

The newly decorated building re-opened its doors on April 9th with a team of dedicated staff carefully selected and trained to meet the demands of an emerging global destination. It aims to become a major welcome, meeting and information point for Chester and coach-friendly with its superb passenger disembarking and meeting areas and its “one-stop” attributes including coach-driver privileges, free broadband and fully accessible toilets and baby changing facilities.

Interestingly and uniquely, any ticketed attraction, event, venue or activity can sell their tickets through Chester Box Office by simply setting up a free online portfolio through www.WebTicketManager.com. Once tickets are listed, they are immediately for sale with a simple commission payable by the ticket seller for any tickets sold. The comprehensive reporting and management interface included is free to use and all online, thus requiring no software installation. It also enables direct online ticket selling via any website with payments processed through an Internet Merchant Number (if available) or the built-in PCI-compliant online payment transaction engine.

Chester Box Office aims to introduce further additional sales channels for its customers including its own APP, data-feeds to other mobile and web technologies, touch-screen self-service ticketing booths throughout the City and partnering multiple high-profile box offices.

Chester Visitor Centre forms part of a migration of historically public-sector funded services into the private-sector arena and has aspirations to bench-mark good practice where consumers benefit in a positive and constructive way enhancing Chester’s overall offer.

• Chester Box Office and www.chesterboxoffice.com has been licensed to Chester and will be owned and operated by the Chester Visitor Centre Partnership.

• WebTicketManager is operated by Livesmart Ltd, Liverpool. Tel: (0151) 235 8777

• For general information call the author, Peter Rosenfeld, on 07977 463965 / peter@codexinternational.com