Smart Tourism: The Next Level of Guest Engagement

As we finish up 2019 and get ready to move into 2020 the question on everyone’s mind is “what will this year have in store for us?” This is especially true for those who are focused on the development of both smart cities and smart theme parks, where integration of modern technology is key to helping ensure seamless transitions from place to place and ensuring a universal “theme” is maintained for visitors and residents alike. But what exactly does this mean, and how can what is implemented into a smart theme park impact a smart city?

Smart Theme Parks & Smart Cities: More Alike Than Different

Parks and resorts today are often vast developments stretching dozens of kilometres and encompassing any and all needs for guests. This can include accommodation, dining, recreational facilities, destinations such as golf courses and beaches, and on-site shopping centres for guests to purchase both necessities and souvenirs. Effectively these are small-scale urban developments with a key central theme that the park or resort is designed around, with a need for guests to navigate seamlessly and easily throughout the resort being of upmost importance.

When scaled up, this key concept used at smart theme parks can further be applied to smart cities as well. Just as parks and resorts require ease of attendee access to all the key features and amenities they boast, so too do city residents require ease of transport and access to both necessities and recreational locations located throughout an urban environment.

Building for the Future

The Asian market is one of the fastest growing markets on the globe, both in terms of sheer development as well as the incorporation of leading edge technology to better improve the experience of attendees at various locations. Studies have shown that 91 percent of Chinese visitors at theme parks not only wish to pre-book their entire trip in advance, but also would prefer to use a mobile app while on-site to do all of their purchasing.

This in turn creates the need to have the ability to offer a seamless experience where visitors can process entry, gain attraction access, pay for dining and do all purchasing without the need to queue or carry additional cash. Shanghai’s Disney Resort has already begun addressing this by incorporating the use of mobile apps into their resort experience, but with an estimated 70 percent of visitors expecting some sort of virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) guide or experience within the next three years additional infrastructure is also required to handle this workload. This is where the latest 5G networks come in.

5G Technology: A True Game Changer

While most people may not be overly familiar with 5G quite yet and may think of it as simply a “small upgrade to 4G”, the reality is far from it. 5G networks can handle up to 100 gigabits of data per second, operating at roughly 100 times faster than the speed of 4G and far exceeding virtually every other home broadband system available in the world.

What this means from an operational standpoint is that over a 5G network information is no longer inaccessible or services unavailable due to transfer limits over a wide range. Information that may have taken hours to transfer and process in the past now can be done in seconds, opening up new avenues for VR, AR, electronic sports, virtual attractions and so much more.

Examples of this in action can be seen in Korea, where a new theme park utilizes 5G for not only AR and VR attractions but also air quality monitoring through the Internet of Things (IoT) and CCTV coverage to ensure attendee safety and security. Happy Valley in Shenzhen will also be equipped with a 5G network allowing further access to entertainment activities, online sports, interactive guides and a wide range of other attractions never before thought possible due to infrastructure limitations. Holographic assistants, 3D printed personal merchandise, robots and voice activated personal assistants in addition to augmented reality attractions are no longer a thing of science fiction but a reality we are currently having at our fingertips.

Smart Tourism Concepts in Smart City Environments

With the advent of 5G and the benefits it brings, interconnectivity and ease of access is more important now than ever before. Temporary tattoos, tracking bracelets or mobile app access can all be integrated into every aspect of a park’s operations allowing for not only smooth experiences but even hyper-targeted advertising to take place for each and every attendee. Scaled up to a city level in a smart city environment these ideas can impact the lives of tens of millions of people daily.

Imagine an environment where you never need to worry about forgetting your wallet or your keys. You can walk to the metro and ride it to work without needing to stand in line to purchase a ticket or recharge a card. Hungry? Grab lunch with the push of a button or hail a cab to have a night out before returning home and opening your door with the wave of a hand. Want to travel somewhere and worried your home may not be safe? Get 24/7 live security camera feeds wherever you may be.

Tourism Benefits All Industries

These concepts are already being rolled out in cities like Shanghai that are incorporating more and more technology into their daily needs to help citizens not only be more secure but also smoothly transition from one aspect of their daily lives to another – just like in smart theme park environments. By incorporating these ideas that are first being pioneered in smart theme park environments, smart cities are able to systematically remove daily hassles their citizens face by incorporating the latest technology available.

Step by Step

While we still have a long ways to go before these ideas are fully realizable for everyone, exploring them in controlled smart theme park environments before rolling them out on large scale smart city urban developments is one key step to helping ensure that everything not only works but works smoothly for everyone. This is especially true in the case of 5G as it is still in its infancy and not all systems can fully utilize it effectively.

Nevertheless, pursuing progress and incorporating the tools at our disposal to achieve new heights is the only way to make our future dreams become present realities.

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 For further information please contact,

Praveen Rao Regional Marketing Director, EDGcompany Tel: +86 (21) 6103 6718   Email: praveen.rao@edgasiapacific.com   Web: www.edgcompany.com