A hiking destination as a pioneer of digital visitor management
Bad Peterstal-Griesbach is a pioneer in the introduction of digital visitor guidance in a hiking destination. Several parking lots for hikers are already being digitally tracked to determine how many cars are parked there. Nine WiFi trackers are currently being installed in the tourist information office, at the swimming pool, and at other important guest contact points. This data is transferred centrally to Destination Insights on Outdooractive.
“We can only really direct visitors with up-to-date data,” says Axel Singer, managing director of Kur & Tourismus GmbH in Bad Peterstal-Griesbach.
Tracking in the area, away from WiFi, is done using GPS position from all apps on the Outdooractive platform (currently around 200 apps). First and foremost, the Outdooractive app with its wide reach (available in the App and Google Play Store), as well as the newly ordered app for the entire Black Forest National Park region.
Utilization is displayed in Destination Insights via live tracking heatmap, allowing managers to assess current utilization on-site at any time and react at short notice. In the future, tracking will not only make it possible to display the capacity utilization at POIs and parking lots (e.g., via traffic light visualization), but also on the hiking trails. Outdooractive will additionally display this utilization rate on tours in the future.
“Directing visitors is a win-win-win situation for the benefit of guests, locals and DMO,” says Hartmut Wimmer, founder and CEO of Outdooractive.
The joint pilot project of Bad Peterstal-Griesbach and Outdooractive is technically supported by DHBW Ravensburg. The region serves as a best-practice example in the research project on “Improving the guest experience through digitization.”
The project is part of the Bridge Program Tourism, an initiative of the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts Baden-Württemberg. It offers tourism graduates the possibility of a professional bridge in times of the Corona pandemic. The result will be an action guide for all destinations on how to effectively implement the digitalization and guidance of guests.
Look forward to monthly updates on the progress of the pilot project, which we will report here.