Technology Update
www.parkworld-online.com
aforementioned social networking integration allow users to post status updates from within the app, showing all of their friends and followers that they are at the respective ride or attraction. A great marketing tool for your park!
A more direct approach is to utilise “push notifications,” which provide additional, instant contact to everyone in your park with the app installed, whether or not they have the app turned on. This is a great way of sending news, updates, show times and offers to your guests throughout the day. There’s one other little reason why apps are great
– they’re green. Traditional paper maps offer a great point of reference for visitors, but more often than not, they end up littering the parks or are thrown away after little use. Utilising a mobile app decreases the reliance on printed maps, potentially reducing the amount of waste, not forgetting printing costs. Mobile apps are a very exciting development, penetrating many aspects of consumer life. Any theme park or attraction that doesn’t at least consider getting into mobile applications is overlooking an amazing opportunity to not only improve the guest experience, but also bring your brand into the 21st century and maybe also increase incremental revenue. If you don’t develop an app for your guests, someone else will!
Mark Locker is managing director of Theme Park Nerd, a UK-based company specialising in the development of mobile applications for the leisure and entertainment industry. Its products include a number of official and independent theme park related apps, including iTunes bestseller Thrill Seeker.
www.thrillseekerapp.com
Want to sell more tickets?
there’s an app for that While they might offer an added service to guests, most existing theme parks apps appear to offer limited revenue opportunities for the parks concerned, even those with their own official branded apps. Leading ticket and admissions provider OmniTicket Network aims to put that right with a new ticket-purchasing app for parks and attractions.
Already in use at a number of venues in Italy, the app is offered free to users, allowing then to book the full range of tickets available online and then a scan a barcode at the turnstile to gain entry. With the next generation of iPhones promising RFID (radio frequency identification), users would not even need a barcode.
Although developed primarily as ticketing function, OmniTIcket’s director of UK operations John Davies says, “Potentially we could integrate maps or any other functions a park wants to offer.”
www.omniticket.com
What apps do you offer to your guests?
Christopher Thorpe, Darien Lake Theme Park, USA: We created our first Darien Lake iPhone and Android applications in 2010, giving us the ability to communicate to a large segment of our guest base. Mobile apps are proving to be effective due to their ability to deliver improved service and enhance the guest experience. Whether it’s a quick peek at the park map and guide or a scroll through our food service menu offerings, guests now have the luxury and convenience of information and suggestions at their fingertips. This unique communication tool helps us make meaningful connections with our guests and ultimately memories worth repeating.
Volker Klaiber, Europa-Park, Germany: We offer our guests the Europa-Park Guide app, which consists of several components. Journey Planner provides you with a route to Europa-Park and estimated arrival time, while Park Navigator helps get your bearings once inside. A menu with different filters will allow you to display the places and information you choose: attractions, shows, restaurants, shopping or services (toilets, information desks, cash dispensers etc). The Parking Place Assistant memorises the position of you vehicle on
the Europa-Park parking lot so that you can find it easily after a day of adventures. We also have a weather forecast function, e-mail contact facility and direct link to our YouTube channel via Europa-Park TV. The app can be downloaded for €0.79, however we do not consider this as a revenue stream, but as a service that we want to provide to our guests.
Stephen Pastusak, Jolly Roger Park, USA: We have already made our website mobile friendly and our app for iPhones and Android phones will be operational by the summer. With smartphones becoming the norm we believe that it will make a big difference to our guests. From personal experience I don't know how I lived without my smartphone and I know I am not the only one like this.
Håkon Lund, Kongeparken, Norway: The Lund Group offers two iPhone applications, one for our amusement park guests, and the other for graduating high school students attending the large music festival we host in the park each May. The Kongeparken app is very basic and was developed at an early stage when it comes to mobile applications. The app shows the different attractions in the park together with a map and individual height requirements for each attraction. The app for the music festival is a lot more in-depth and includes the latest festival news, information about the artists performing and the ability for guests to compile their own concert programme. The festival map is integrated with Google Maps, so that you get the GPS co-ordinates and see exactly where you are within the site. There’s also information on catering, public transport, frequently asked questions and direct links to iTunes, Spotify, YouTube and Facebook, plus our guests can upload messages and pictures to our big screen via the app, which can be downloaded for free from iTunes. With a 70% share of the smartphone market, the iPhone is definitely the winner. This compares to about 20% for Android phones and the remaining 10% for Windows, Blackberry and Symbian (Nokia) platforms. There is always a cost when it comes to developing a tool like an iPhone app, but we look at it as a long-term investment and something we are going to use for several years. However, with the festival app we feature push notifications directing users to third party applications, and here there is definitely some room for a return on investment.
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Europa-Park Guide
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