Capacity Management & Other Key Concerns for Open Tourist Attractions

The outbreak of the coronavirus has led to a highly anxious time, especially for those in the attraction and tourism sector. However, the situation appears to becoming more positive, with many establishments and venues recently being allowed to open again, welcoming a reduced and limited number of customers through their doors.

With this in mind, there are a number of factors for tourist attractions to consider, including visitor and capacity management, the installation of online ticketing, avoiding wastage and gathering information about your visitors.

What visitor and capacity management processes do you have in place?

Visitor and capacity management remains a vital concern following the coronavirus pandemic. The government has offered capacity advice for some attractions, however you may also need to decide on visitor numbers yourself as they have only provided industry guidance rather than widespread rules.

By installing visitor management software, your attraction will benefit from detailed sales and admissions reports that make analysis of visitor demographics easy and quick, thus allowing you to optimise for future openings.

At Vennersys, our VenposCloud System includes an events module, with capacity-driven and timed entry capabilities so that attractions can view and control how many guests are on-site in real-time. This means that you can avoid crowding and ensure your visitors maintain appropriate social distancing.

Is your website ready to provide user-friendly online ticketing?

Having an online booking system is an important consideration for capacity management at your venue, however it’s essential that this is set up in an easy-to-use and effective way. This way, your business can maximise profits and make the most of being able to welcome customers again.

Consider: how easy is it for a customer to buy a ticket online? Keep in mind that your audience may have varying levels of digital experience and so buying tickets online may be a new or unfamiliar experience for them. Test your booking journey and review your booking system to simplify the process as much as possible.

Not only this, but with your website now being an essential part of your visitor’s experience at your venue, you may want to make sure that your website is up to date with correct and relevant information about the changing health and safety procedures you have in place for visitors.

With the installation of VenposCloud, our box office additional module allows you to take bookings over the telephone and via the website, along with support for allocated seating and self-edible templates to make the process personalised to your business. It even simplifies the process further, by allowing segmentation of tickets into different channels.

How will you be efficient and avoid waste?

If your venue operates a kitchen, you may have to change your cooking processes to ensure optimum hygiene levels. This combined with reduced venue capacities can lead to more stock wastage.

Installing an epos system such as VenposStock gives you complete control of your stock, whether it is merchandise in the gift shop or food in the kitchen. Suppliers can then be set up and maintained on the system enabling purchase orders to be raised and approved.

Stock is decremented automatically based on sales at the point of sale and there is also the facility to record damaged products that cannot be sold. These features make it easy to gain real-life accurate information about product sales at your tourist attraction.

We have also recently added extra functionality to the VenposCloud solution to support attractions in reopening safely. The system now incorporates a catering module into the customer journey, which enables customers to order food self-service style, thus limiting contact with staff while on site.

How will you gather data about your visitors?

The government suggests that attractions and venues across the country partake in the test and track service to help trace close recent contacts of anyone who tests positive for coronavirus and, if necessary, notify them that they must self-isolate at home to help stop the spread of the virus.

Our VenposCloud system and VenposCRM facilitates detailed capture and visitor information, which allows you to get to know more about your customers by creating an enhanced database. It is then possible to record additional personal details and categorise customers.

Vennersys

“The current situation has us all wondering on what our next steps will be. One thing we know for sure is it will take some time for us to resume normal activity. Until then it is imperative, we continue to share our knowledge and remain the communal industry we have always been.”

Kevin Davis, Development Director.

At Vennersys, we have been working hard to support businesses and venues across the country by providing integrated ticketing and visitor management software following the coronavirus pandemic.

If you’d like to speak to a member of the Vennersys team, please contact us on 01922 472 044 or email info@vennersys.com.