DINERS can now make instant bookings at restaurants across South Africa directly from Google Search, Maps or Assistant.

South African reservations management software Dineplan, used by thousands of restaurants nationwide to manage their bookings, has integrated with Reserve with Google for diners to see live availability at their favourite restaurants, and conveniently book directly via Google.

Consumers can use Reserve with Google to plan their week and stay notified through Google Calendar, Gmail and via their devices, as well as use the Dineplan mobile app to cancel, confirm or change their instant booking.

‘To be able to offer restaurant bookings through Google will provide diners another promising avenue to make bookings through the Dineplan network. With bookings on the Business Profile showing up in Google Search results, this will present a very convenient and efficient way for diners to make their reservations,’ said Dineplan director Martin Rose.

This exciting new release is not only great news for the diner, but SA’s restaurant industry too.

‘This will be hugely beneficial for restaurants as the convenience of booking online will help to drive more bookings and people into restaurants, all of which comes at a difficult period for restaurants in general with the COVID pandemic,’ said Rose.

More than 300 000 bookings are made across the South African Dineplan network every month - 30% of these are made online.

About Dineplan

Dineplan founders Martin Rose and Greg Whitfield started the reservation software company in Cape Town in 2011, developing back-end software for restaurants to use as their electronic reservation book.

This would later enable instant bookings to diners via the Dineplan booking widget on restaurant clients’ websites.

In 2018, the company launched the, now award-winning, Dineplan App to enable diners to make instant or request bookings at restaurants from their mobile phones.

When SA’s restaurants were forced to close their doors in March 2020 due to the Covid-19 outbreak, Dineplan launched the free Voucherplan platform for any small business to sell vouchers and generate much-needed cash flow during the stifling lockdown period. More than R6-million worth of vouchers have so far been sold via https://www.voucherplan.co.za/ in aid of businesses.

Once restaurants were allowed to re-open for takeaways in May 2020, Dine In was released facilitating instant take-away orders and online payments for pickup and delivery.