Corporate Outdooractive News

World premiere: Live heatmap with parking space occupancy

One of the biggest levers in digital visitor management is the issue of parking spaces. Especially on days with “overtourism”, the hunt is on for the last free parking spaces. When the parking lots are full, there is either unnecessary parking lot search traffic with clogged streets, or cars are parked somewhere without regard for local property owners.

Now there is a way for guests to find out online and live where there is still available parking. We’ve developed a live heatmap that uses a traffic light system to show parking lot capacity at that moment. The data comes directly from digital payment systems for parking spaces. We cooperate with the largest digital systems for parking services Easypark and ParkNow for this.

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Direct visitor flows across your region

Hardware solutions enable DMOs to count visitors on site, but can only measure visitor flows selectively (e.g. at parking lots and POIs). This is not suitable for comprehensive visitor management. In addition, it is not possible to react proactively to visitor flows. Measures are only initiated when tourists are already in the region. This makes it impossible to react reasonable to overcrowding in the long term and to solve problems such as nature destruction, overtourism and parking shortages.

Use the Destination Heatmap from Outdooractive as an indicator

The Destination Heatmap is Outdooractive’s tool that allows DMOs to see live, even before tourists arrive, which locations are in high demand. The software-based solution calibrates an exact count at individual points and enables visitor guidance over the entire area. In the long term, this information is stored and recorded in statistics. This information is the most useful basis for destinations to make correct decisions in different areas. For example, it becomes clear where the focus should be placed in marketing, which investments need to be made and which information should be displayed even more visible to visitors.

In addition to this background information in the Destination Heatmap, Outdooractive also provides tools (e.g. POI Challenges) to guide visitors in a targeted manner.

In this way, the Outdooractive platform, which has a wide reach, covers two central points in visitor guidance. On the one hand, statistics on visitor flows can be compiled and important insights can be gained from them. On the other hand, well-developed tools are offered that can be used to react directly and efficiently to these findings.

 

Digital visitor management – holistic and sustainable

In order to properly guide and direct your visitors, an end-to-end digital solution is needed. By the time a family has planned a day trip early on Saturday or Sunday and set off by car, it is already too late for meaningful guidance. This is because they do not have a Plan B with them when they hit traffic jams along the road and parking lots have filled up over the morning. Even crowded hiking trails, beaches and places to refreshment stops can no longer be avoided. The increasing number of tourists at popular spots and the pressure this places on the environment and infrastructure inevitably causes problems.

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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.

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