VGS is a leading ticketing software and services company that provides its technology to some of the world’s busiest and most popular attractions. It is the brainchild of Paolo Moro, who has worked in the attractions industry for more than 30 years. He founded the current company in 2011, building on more than 20 years of experience to create a new solution, designed to meet the needs of attractions operators both now and in the future.
Ticketing technology has evolved a lot over the past four decades. To find out more about the latest trends and developments, blooloop spoke to Moro about his journey so far and where he sees the attractions industry heading.
Over three decades of experience
“I started my adventure designing and supplying highly specialized ticketing technology to the leisure and entertainment markets a long time ago,” says Moro. “It was right after I graduated, so I’m talking about 30 years ago.
“When I started my first organisation in Europe, we invested in the design of a software platform targeted to entertainment businesses. This was in the ’90s when substantial investments were going into the building of theme parks and water parks all around Europe.
“We started designing an application which went beyond the minimum needs of a ticketing system; software that could manage the business entirely, and more globally. It was not just focused on tracking ticket sales and redemptions, as was the case for other software platforms offered at that time.”
Because of that different approach, the company quickly became successful. It expanded first in Europe and then in the United States, Asia and the UAE.
“Basically, we lived and led the entire evolution of the ticketing in the leisure industry throughout the last 30 years,” adds Moro.
The early years of ticketing technology
During these years, Moro and his colleagues were at the leading edge, observing as the market and its needs changed.
“I realised how the role of the proposed technology evolved towards the management of the overall guest experience. That’s when I became conscious that it was time to think back to the fundamentals behind ticketing technology. It was no longer possible to try to support the latest requirements via the enhancement of a product originally designed for a more limited scope and role.”
In 2011, Moro decided to put together a group of talented people and market experts in order to reinvest in a completely new platform.
“Basically, we went through what I could call the second phase of my career, and the careers of many of the people that work with me.”
“We decided to come back with a technology that had to take a role beyond the management of ticket sales and admissions. We wanted to provide solutions that support the breadth of requirements for a leisure destination or tourist destination. This had to be achieved by either embedding the functionality within our technology or through integration with complementary systems.”
The objective was to build a comprehensive, dynamic and open entitlements platform, he says:
“We decided to put our experience into a completely new design and leverage the latest technologies. Because of this, we were able to come back with something different, something new and unique. After spending a few years creating this new platform, the result was something quite ground-breaking. Our efforts were immediately acknowledged when, at the product market launch in 2014, our new platform named SnApp was granted an award for its innovative approach.”
More than just tickets
What VGS provides is not simply ticketing technology. Instead, as Moro explains, it is a customer experience and visitor management platform.
“The reality is that SnApp is the heart and the brain behind attractions’ business models. It is the heart because it’s in charge of managing, directly or indirectly, all the various services, benefits, and entitlements made available by our clients to their guests.”
“But it’s also the brain. That is because it’s in charge of providing ways to optimise attendance, improve internal flows, decrease management costs, and apply sophisticated algorithms for setting prices and designing packages. All of this helps to provide the best visitor experience. In summary, SnApp is the engine behind the supply and support of the entire guests’ experience, no matter what the guest planned to do in the first place or looks for during the visit.
“SnApp offers our clients’ guests an easy way to redeem, benefit from, purchase, rent and access everything that is offered by a venue. We track all data in detail to support venues’ management in the fundamental task to ‘know their guests’.”
Multi-site destinations
SnApp is also aligned with current market needs, where visitor destinations go beyond single gates or single parks.
“The market is moving more and more towards cooperation between organisations,” says Moro. “There are many resort locations offering multiple types of attractions. But, at the same time, when people visit a destination there are multiple attractions to enjoy.”
“For our clients, it’s now fundamental to create cooperation with neighbour locations. They can cross-promote and cross-package offers to incentivise people to choose that destination versus others because of the variety of offers and easy access to those. The fact is that competition is increasing between destination areas. So, improving an area’s visibility and facilitating access to its products is a key to success.
“The management of multi-site and multi-gates is, therefore, part of the platform core. It includes all tools to build the admission rights combinations on configurable business rules with no limitations.”
Real-time tracking
VGS’ clients can use its system to track everything in real-time.
“SnApp provides ways to optimise sales through dynamic pricing, management of allotments of availability, and direct control of the distribution channels in a highly sophisticated way. And, it is all done in real-time. The system immediately tracks and posts sales made by business partners or OTAs. The applicable business rules, auditing and tracking tools are the ones configured in the main instance and via the same processes that support onsite transactions.
“On top of this, SnApp offers direct integration with our clients’ back of the house software platforms. This includes the financial and ERP systems.”
“SnApp is at the centre of the entire ecosystem. We take care of a great number of functionalities in support of the business and, when required, we dispatch messages to the other software platform via our multiple integration options.
“Maintaining integration options throughout the software design has been another key aspect of SnApp. With the aim of providing a consistent guest experience, the software needed to factor integrations with complementary solutions, offering other services or entitlements, not directly managed, as well as real-time connection to distribution channels such as OTAs, business to business sales, e-commerce, or connections to sale chains as, for instance, a network of stores.
“All of those complement our offerings. They facilitate visibility and more in-depth distribution options to our clients, who maintain full control and are in line with their security policies.
“All together, we can really say that our solution is an effective and comprehensive experience management solution. We support the entire guests’ activities during their visit.”
Meeting the market’s needs
While Moro and his colleagues had a wealth of experience to draw on, they went back to the drawing board in terms of technology when they started VGS in 2011:
“We really started the design of our new technology from scratch. The limitation of companies with a long history is that it’s hard to decide to rethink the core product. Companies tend to add components to the already existing technology, often originally designed for different purposes, to support new concepts and requirements.
“We instead built the new product from ground zero. We leveraged our experience and knew from the beginning what we had to support at first, as well as in years to come.
“So, we thought about where we wanted to be, what made sense and we redesigned the technology, no strings attached. Our technology design was driven by the concepts that we considered essential.”
“We began by selecting some fundamentals behind the entire technology, which were the bricks on which the system is built. We didn’t have any inherited constraints, we really started from zero, with the advantage of tens of years of experience in dealing with this market, and understanding well both its current needs and market trends. That was a good thing to do because SnApp, launched in 2014, quickly gained its position becoming the market-leading platform.
“Following this work, and because of the product scalability, a number of clients of various sizes and complexities, active in different markets, have opted to use us. Flagship international venues include really complex resorts and destinations. They recognize SnApp as the perfect instrument to move the business ahead to a new way of thinking about how to serve guests and manage the business.”
Guest-centric ticketing technology and more
The technology is guest-centric, making it an ideal choice for today’s experience economy.
“It’s really a step ahead because we don’t identify what the client has purchased through a classical link between ticket and product,” says Moro.
“The ticket doesn’t just represent what the guest has purchased, it relates to the guest’s portfolio. Whatever a guest carries, a ticket, a phone, a membership, it uniquely identifies the guest. All items that the guest holds are saved in the portfolio. This can be dynamically and virtually updated and/or modified in its content.”
“The portfolio includes all the guests’ entitlements, such as admissions, privileges, discounts, loyalty points, electronic money, coupons, etc. Redemption of the entitlements requires just the identification of the guest through a single media and SnApp takes care of applying the proper actions. Guests, therefore, enjoy a consistent and easy experience throughout their entire visit.
“So, the technology is guest-centric, not a solution that is detached with independent components. Everything revolves around the guest. This is another breakthrough concept which differentiates our offer from others with a more classical approach.”
Futureproofing
VGS’ solutions are in place at attractions of all sizes around the world. Furthermore, the team is on hand to help its clients get the most out of the system as they grow and expand.
“We can always provide a ‘classical’ ticketing solution. But that is just a subset of the features that the system is ready to support. Even if all clients don’t require all of SnApp’s embedded features, the system is ready for extra functionality later.”
“It sometimes happens that we are perceived in the first place as a classical ticketing technology provider. But the fact is that our solution is designed for the years to come. It is ready to take on a more important role within the overall business processes.
“It’s too bad when expectations in a ticketing software are limited to the scope of tracking sales. Know the guests, have the option to design products specifically for the various guest profiles, combine and package offers, facilitate and improve advance sales, and leverage tools to reduce time-to-market. These are all fundamental bricks for the improvement of business efficiency and profitability.
“SnApp supports all these aspects, so guests get a better service and enjoy their visit even more. In the end, word of mouth is the best advertising for whatever business.”
A customer-focused approach
This customer-focused approach leads to a more streamlined guest experience. This is because gets rid of those friction points that often lead to a negative memory.
“The advantage of this type of technology is that it supports customers in a very consistent, smooth way. Nothing is complex,” says Moro.
“For instance, you can use your phone to enter the gate, redeem your voucher at the point of sale, rent something at the rental location, and pay for transactions with your electronic money. Basically, it’s a seamless, consistent experience. And guests really like it because there’s no need to carry multiple tickets or multiple identifiers. Redemptions are all connected to the accounts to prevent the error of considering a returning client as a new visitor.
“That is the type of guest-centric function that a modern entitlement platform needs to provide.”
Ticketing technology and COVID-19
While the pandemic has inevitably had an impact on the attractions industry, ticketing technology has come into its own with the need to improve the pre-booking process. Those operators not ready to properly manage this functionality in-depth have found themselves at a disadvantage.
“With COVID, it is more important than ever to manage bookings and availability at a level of granularity not needed previously. So, we provide a lot of features around that,” says Moro.
He is positive about the future, despite the prolonged restrictions:
“The pandemic especially affected attractions businesses, particularly at the beginning. But we’ve seen that as soon as the situation relaxes a little bit, people come back. So, I don’t think the industry will take long to recover. It’s a resilient industry and people are always going to want to go out and have fun.”
Technology & ticketing trends
The global pandemic has also caused certain trends to accelerate. For instance, it sped up the adoption of certain processes and technologies.
“The business model was moving towards all mobile, with a higher percentage of advance sales, dated visits, electronic payments, and media virtualisation. COVID ended up accelerating such transitions and we’re seeing a faster change in mentality,” says Moro.
“Firstly, advance sales are taking a bigger percentage of the overall ticket sales, in many cases even the biggest percentage. That actually improves the efficiency of the park. It means that operators can better plan based on the actual attendance and consequently optimize operations. Moreover, the possibility to dynamically price the admissions is highly leveraged to more equally distribute attendance throughout the year.
“We are also seeing major sales increase via distributors and partners. Connection to OTAs, booking portals and business partners, particularly when managed via direct integrations, take a higher percentage of sales.”
“The transition acceleration also affected the use of electronic payments and e-tickets. In some countries, there were difficulties in this tech being commonly adopted before. Yet now, it is required widely because of the benefits of contactless transactions during the pandemic.
“Media is also becoming more virtualised. In its extreme version, this virtualisation includes our newest facial recognition technology which completely replaces the use of physical media. Guests just approach the gate and the system quickly identifies them within millions of pre-registered accounts. Then it browses their entitlements to identify which one to redeem at that specific location.
“All these new technologies lead to a better user experience, better planning and better optimization of costs. The bottom line is that COVID has sped up the evolution of these technologies. It has happened faster than expected before.”
A global client base
VGS has clients all over the world, including some household names and the world’s most visited parks.
“Leisure, entertainment and destination areas across five continents use SnApp. Our clients range from locations that cater to a few hundred thousand people per year up to tens of millions.
“The technology we offer is highly scalable and ready for expansion. Even our smaller clients look for ways to increase their business by packaging their offers with other locations to cross-promote and cross-sell each other. So, a scalable solution is the right choice for those as well.
“Our fast market penetration around the world shows that the concept of providing a solution to manage the overall visit together with the possibility to operate entire destination areas are in line with the market expectation and trend. Our clients also love the fact that we designed a completely open system ready for integration with all the complementary technologies and distribution channels.
VGS looks to the future
In terms of what’s next for VGS, Moro says:
“The risk of targeting different business types is that the software can end up doing a little of all, but nothing in a real specialized way. Our approach is instead to keep investing in the analysis of each business requirement. This ensures that we embed functions specific to each target market, keeping the product comprehensive yet specialised.
“We want to expand our target to become the technology behind the Smart City of the future. So far, we have gone from managing multiple gates to managing entire destinations or networks of locations. But we also feel that our logic is ready to be the backbone behind Smart City’s functions and requirements, via the integration, for example, with transportation, restaurants, and all the services that locals and tourists look for when they visit a destination.
“We are multinational. VGS has offices in Italy, Singapore, UAE, USA and Australia and we are proud that we are a multicultural company. Plus, the fact that we have locally based experts is also an important advantage whenever we need to consider and factor in country-specific requirements for the proposed solution.”
