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 by Juliana Gilling
On your next attraction visit, you might want to skip the leaflet stand and take an app for a spin, instead.
Attractions worldwide are preparing new mobile applications for smartphones and other handheld devices, designed to give guests familiar tools and fresh ways to enjoy their days. Early adopters are already adapting their apps to meet changing guest expectations and technologies. These apps are providing everything from maps, show times, and menus to GPS locators, games, and social media sharing. Text, video, audio, photographs, and even augmented reality—the practice of overlaying data onto the real world via your smartphone screen—are all current options.
To put the growth in apps into context, IHS Screen Digest predicts 18.1 billion apps will be downloaded in 2011, up from 9.5 billion in 2010. Given users’ appetite for apps, attractions must consider developing a mobile presence.
“We want to create a better guest experience,” says Katie Bruno, director at wddonline, which developed the MyPark apps for Cedar Point, Knott’s Berry Farm, and Kings Island released on May 1. “We’ve thought of everything a guest might want to do while they’re at an amusement park and we’ve made it easy for them to find the information on their phones.”
Guest navigation is the starting point for many attraction apps. “Our technology translates a park’s GPS locations into an illustrated map, which is a more attractive way for people to navigate the park than looking at a satellite photo,” says Bruno.
Cedar Point’s app provides much more than a simple map, adds Rebecca Baker, the park’s interactive marketing coordinator. It shows guests where they are in the park in relation to what they are looking for—such as restrooms, ATMs, roller coasters, or food preferences—by proximity.
In addition to a car locator, Cedar Point’s iPhone/ Android app includes a Friend Finder feature that allows families and groups to keep track of one another during the day. The app’s My Trip function allows users to select their favorite attractions, shows, and restaurants before their visit. This saves guests a great deal of scrolling through information on the day of the trip. From an operational point of view, the MyPark app can also push out notifications to guests in the park.
Here’s a look at what other attractions are doing in the app world.
Elitch Gardens
Elitch Gardens added a new Android app this year, in addition to its iPhone app (both free of charge). “These apps are not only fun and incredibly detailed; they’re also dynamic,” says Aron Ezra, CEO of MacroView Labs, the company behind this app and mobile apps for the Bellagio, MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, and Darien Lake. “The content can constantly change to show guests up-to-the-minute information about the latest shows, rides, special offers, weather … you name it,” says Ezra. Elitch Gardens’ app encourages users to give feedback and rate content to help the park enhance the guest experience.
 SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment
SeaWorld entered the market with the SeaWorld & Busch Gardens Photo Adventure app (June 2009) and SeaWorld San Antonio app (September 2010). It expects to have apps for the San Diego and Orlando SeaWorld parks this summer, as well as the two Busch Gardens parks by fall 2011. Sea- World San Antonio’s iPhone/Android app contains park information and allows guests to customize their days with guided tours, waterpark cabanas, and Quick Queue. Users can learn about SeaWorld’s animals, use the in-app camera, and access the park’s Facebook and Twitter feeds.
“Adding a trip planner and mobile commerce could provide future revenue opportunities, such as purchasing admission tickets or park tours,” says Melissa Albers, interactive marketing manager for SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment.
 Europa-Park
Europa-Park has registered approximately 50,000 downloads of its Europa-Park Guide app—priced at €0.79 each (US$1.13)— since its debut at the start of the 2010 season. Developed in-house, the app (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad compatible) will soon be joined by an Android version.
Thorpe Park
Thorpe Park’s official app takes full advantage of the latest technology. Special features include interactive games, promotional offers, and live queue times—a service many parks are hoping to incorporate into their apps soon. Thorpe Park’s app went live on June 25, 2010, with 100,000 downloads from July to December.
Ocean Park
Knowing that guests want fun, Ocean Park developed two free apps: “Halloween” (an augmented reality game launched in October 2010) and “Aqua City” (a virtual fishfeeding game that rewards players with e-coupons for the park). After its launch in January, “Aqua City” recorded 40,000 downloads by May. “Game apps have to be fun and ‘sticky’ so that people want to learn more. If they like the apps, people will share them with others,” says Vivian Lee, Ocean Park’s marketing director.
A mobile site (http://m.oceanpark.com.hk) contains park information, and the company is considering an Ocean Park app with similar features. “A successful theme park app should be useful for its users not only when they are inside, but also outside the park,” says Lee.
British Library
While many theme parks focus on providing on-the-go information for guests while in the parks, museums and other attractions are taking a broader view.
The British Library’s “Treasures” app, enabled by Toura, makes it possible for users to experience its collections from anywhere in the world. The app offers more than 100 highlights—from Jane Austen’s teenage writings to the Lindisfarne Gospels—presented through high-resolution images. The app includes sound recordings and 50 videos, all Wi-Fi enabled. It is updated regularly with information on British Library exhibitions.
“Museums have a little more latitude in what they can do because of how people experience the interpretive content, whereas theme parks are a much more physical experience,” says Aaron Radin, chief executive of Toura. Toura’s technology powers apps for institutions like the Art Institute of Chicago and the Imperial War Museum.
 Museum of London
The Museum of London’s “Streetmuseum” app goes beyond the museum’s four walls. It guides users to more than 200 sites across London, drawing on the museum’s art and photographic collections to reveal their hidden histories. Users can look at their iPhones and see the past emerge, overlaid across modern city scenes.
 London Zoo/Cleveland Metroparks Zoo
London Zoo’s app acts as a pocket animal encyclopedia, as well as a zoo guide. Across the Atlantic the new app from Cleveland Metroparks Zoo features GPS navigation that allows guests to determine their exact location within the facility and then figure out how best to get to the exhibits they want to see.
Tower of London
At the Tower of London, history comes to life with its free “Escape from the Tower” app. This historically accurate, location-aware game uses sensors within the Tower to trigger content as players attempt to smuggle virtual letters, ropes, and contraband to help famous prisoners break free. Blending the physical site with virtual content, users answer questions and make decisions that affect the outcome of the game, scoring points along the way.
 Parks have an opportunity to provide extra entertainment value through their apps, too. “Imagine creating a geocaching trail to take people on a treasure hunt through your park,” Bruno says. “Gamify the guest experience. Encourage people to interact with other guests—get them competing to see who can be the first to do all the rides, for example. Make the app part of the park entertainment experience. And give people ways to relive that experience afterward, such as webcams and videos.”
Successful apps depend on the quality of their content and the clarity of their presentation, not just their novelty. “Content is everything,” says Radin. “The careful selection, organization, and display of that content is what really makes apps do well.”
Also, think like a guest when you are creating an app. Says Bruno: “Engage guests in the process so that you make sure you’re building it for them, not for yourselves.”
Juliana Gilling is a specialist attractions journalist. E-mail: julianagilling@gmail.com.
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