Featured News

Viewpoint: Rethinking the Welcome to Visitor Attractions

Smeetz – the ticketing and dynamic pricing software provider to the leisure and cultural sector – reflects on how visitor attractions can adapt their ‘welcome’ in the post – pandemic era:

“While most of the cultural and tourism actors have just passed the year mark of being closed, some sectors such as museums and theme parks are now reopening, albeit with some constraints.

Smeetz has been providing these players with digital solutions since the beginning of the crisis to help them navigate through this difficult period.

Today, the company sees its sector evolving into a new mechanic with the rapid adoption of technological innovations such as dynamic pricing or dynamic packaging.

New pragmatism

Even if a new wave does not occur, the health crisis will continue to influence our society, both in human relationships and in consumer habits. Cultural institutions and tourist attractions, as they reopen, were prepared to evolve with new regulations and new consumer behaviors.

Capacity limitation and dynamic pricing
Museums and tourist attractions are used to peak and off-peak periods and need to learn how to better distribute the influx of visitors. While it is pleasing to see crowds of people lining up at our cultural institutions at weekends, rather than at shopping centres, we need to ensure that visitors can get in and enjoy the cultural offer within the limits of capacity. Cultural institutions and tourist attractions now need to adapt to limited occupancy rates by introducing time-specific quotas.

Used by the aviation and hotel industries, dynamic pricing encourages visitors to plan their visit in advance and at times of lower attendance. These intelligent, variable pricing models help to increase attendance during low-traffic periods while keeping institutions profitable during high-traffic periods, despite new regulations.

The recent adoption of dynamic pricing strategies by several institutions in Switzerland, Germany and the rest of Europe is proof that change is underway, and that innovations are helping to solve some of the problems faced by the sector.

COVID-compliance

As the tourism industry – such as the aviation and hotel sectors – was preparing for the reopening of borders and the first batch of travellers last summer, the issue of the vaccination passport has become a burning one.

The same issue is now slowly also affecting cultural institutions and tourist attractions across Europe. You have to show your credentials to go to the theatre, visit an exhibition or have dinner at a restaurant.

The Smeetz team has been working on this issue for several months and is ready for the introduction of such measures to facilitate the administrative processes of organisers. The integrated Smeetz ticketing solution allows the purchase of tickets to be authorised or not on the basis of specific criteria such as a negative PCR test or a compliant vaccination booklet. In a few weeks, the Smeetz scanner app will also scan and recognise validity of Covid certificates around the world using Swiss regulations until further notice.

New package deals

In an effort to win back their audience as quickly as possible, many cultural institutions and tourist attractions are now proposing new offers to attract a more local clientele. Although not yet widespread in the leisure sector, the dynamic packaging dimension has already proved its worth in the hotel sector. It allows unique and personalised experiences to be offered to consumers.

With fewer people and less volume, many players have now seized the opportunity to think differently and offer experiences with greater added value, rather than trying to play with increased volumes. That is for example the case of a leading chocolate museum in Germany and a family theme park & zoo in Ireland.

In this context, the Smeetz team has redoubled its efforts since the beginning of the year and now enables players in the cultural and tourism sector to combine offers in an extremely simple way even between different service providers, transport companies and catering companies.”

Image Source: PR Supplied.