Mobile app technology is being used by well-known, widely recognised tourist destinations like Knowsley Safari to improve the visitor experience. The Merseyside-based attraction wanted to improve visitor engagement while updating their digital Safari Drive experience. It is spread across 500 acres and receives more than 600,000 visitors annually.
After a brief initial consultation, the North-East English company n-gage.io was hired to develop and implement a digital strategy that would improve the Knowsley Safari Drive experience while also assisting the safari park in gaining insightful information about visitor behaviour.
To create and implement the attraction management software and visitor mobile app across the site, N-gage.io has been collaborating with Ian Duke, marketing manager at Knowsley Safari, and Rachel Scott, head of marketing at Knowsley Estate.
Through its robust, data-driven SaaS platform and visitor app, n-gage.io, led by entrepreneur Bryan Hoare and incubated by GCV Labs, seeks to transform the visitor experience at attractions. To improve the safari park’s strategy for digital visitor engagement, n-gage.io helped launch the highly customizable visitor mobile app within a few months.
The attraction is now taking advantage of new ways to engage its audience both on and off site as well as better understanding how people spend their time during a visit thanks to 1500 app downloads in the first week of launch.
According to Ian Duke, “We had been looking for a solution to update our current Safari Drive mobile app technology for our visitors but found it increasingly challenging to identify industry software that gave us the customizability and control that we wanted. Like many other attractions, we had great success with our previous app, but we soon realised that it was quickly becoming obsolete due to recent technological advancements and changing visitor expectations.We chose the n-gage.io solution because of its highly customizable base app, which could reflect our website brand, and the operator platform’s feature-rich backend, which runs it and provides us with a tonne more information about audience activity on the website. Although the app itself has a tonne of interesting features, what really drew us to the software was what we could do with the platform to deliver a more interactive and educational experience.
With the help of the new software, the attraction is now able to improve not only the previous safari drive experience but also develop other captivating trail experiences with triggered in-app content and park-wide notifications. “We’re able to be far more creative in our approach to on-site audience engagement because we can now manage our visitors’ interactive digital experiences on a daily basis,” Ian continued.
Additionally, from an operational standpoint, we’re able to assist our visitors in better planning and managing their day, from integrating with digital ticketing to interactive mapping and wayfinding.When we update our visitor technology, it’s crucial for us to make sure that it doesn’t take away from the physical enjoyment of being with us and instead improves the overall safari experience.
The park’s push for sustainability and our digital approach have made it less necessary to have as much signage and to rely as heavily on printed materials like paper maps and other printed information.
“The app is our visitor’s personal safari guide and helps them learn about our animals and conservation work in more detail, bringing them closer to nature and also hopefully learning something new every time they visit.”
“We’ve been delighted to work with the team at Knowsley Safari and see how our technology can make a difference, not just operationally, but the positive impact it can make across their entire safari experience,” said Bryan Hoare, founder and CEO of n-gage.io.
Jimmy’s Farm & Wildlife Park, Alameda Wildlife Conservation Park (AWCP), in Gibraltar, and Northumberland Zoo, in North East England, are already using software and mobile apps created by n-gage.io, with more zoos and wildlife parks launching soon.
Source-Travel daily