Attractions.io, a leading creator of mobile visitor apps, has developed a new app for Chester Zoo, UK, which offers better reliability, responsiveness, and stability. The new Attractions.io solution replaces the zoo’s previous app, providing key improvements for both its guests and the park’s marketing team.
Chester Zoo is Cheshire’s premier animal destination with over 20,000 animals and 128 acres of zoological gardens for guests to explore. The wildlife charity has a strong commitment to preventing the extinction of threatened species, and is one of the UK’s most popular paid attractions, attracting over 2 million guests a year.
The zoo is recognised for providing world-class animal and guest welfare, ranked in recent years as one of the world’s top three zoos by TripAdvisor.
Designed for the outdoors
Attractions.io reports that Chester Zoo’s prior app was not able to cope with high demand during the peak season, such as school and bank holidays.
Chester Zoo’s new app has an established uptime of nearly 100% and is optimised for large destinations where Wi-Fi and phone signal is not always guaranteed. The mobile app can be accessed by guests even without an internet connection to view the park map, to search for specific animals they want to visit and receive directions to prime viewing spots.
Guests with special access requirements will also be provided with further assistance, as the app can highlight wheelchair and pushchair-friendly routes that avoid uneven routes.
The new Attractions.io platform that Chester Zoo is transitioning to is used by other animal attractions in the sector such as Chessington World of Adventures, San Diego Zoo, and Zoo Tampa.
Attractions.io CEO Mark Locker says:
“We have long admired Chester Zoo for their commitment to delivering incredible guest experiences, and we’re thrilled to support their digital guest journey. The new mobile app will enhance the guest experience, making it even easier to explore the zoo and access guest services with just a tap.”
New insights for teams
Operations teams and management can now benefit from up-to-the-minute data visualisations such as integrated heat maps, with the ability to track guests’ site movements and spot congestion to alleviate at peak times.
Marketers can take advantage of behavioural insights from the app, helping find new sales opportunities and improve the understanding of their audiences by analysing how guests transverse during their visit.
Chester Zoo commercial director Dominic Strange says the institution is looking forward to engaging further with Attractions.io:
“Having a platform that enables us to adopt a data-driven approach is an invaluable resource for our ops team. We aspire to deliver a standout guest experience for every individual, and now we have the power to deliver on that goal, using behavioural insights to tailor the experience for each guest.
“Attractions.io has been a great partner, enabling us to launch a robust and feature-rich solution that our guests love in just eight weeks. We see this opportunity as the first step towards future-proofing our capabilities for the digital age and are excited to see the partnership progress in the future.”
“It will be transformative”
Locker is confident that Attractions.io will deliver benefits to the Chester charity, concluding:
“For the zoo’s operations team, it will be transformative. They now have a way to actively influence NPS, drive spending, increase fundraising and educate guests about the vital conservation work taking place on-site.”
Attractions.io recently announced its app is being used by another UK business, Butlin’s resorts, with three comprehensive holiday sites based on the UK coastline.
