5 apps that effectively enhance families’ visitor experiences

1. Paultons Park

Paultons Park’s app does everything in its power to make life easier for families at the popular theme park. It also helps the park’s team to understand guest behaviour and improve marketing.

Made in partnership with Attractions.io, the app helps guests navigate the 140-acre site using dynamic mapping and a day planner that enables guests to put together a dynamic, personalised itinerary. Highlights include live queue times and an in-app food ordering function that’s seen a significant increase in basket size compared to till sales. It also features a UK-first: an in-app ticketing feature that allows guests to import or scan in their ticket details, so there’s no need to print or queue to collect tickets.

• What problem does it solve for families? The app helps address the most common pain points of theme park visitors: long queues, getting lost and missing much-anticipated events.
• What makes this app stand out? It works just as hard for the park team as it does for guests. Using heat mapping, the app offers a deeper insight into crowd flow. It also sends news and special offers push notifications, including messages dynamically targeted to guests in certain areas of the park. After their visit, users are encouraged to leave a review on TripAdvisor, which helps Paultons Park maintain its enviable ranking.

2. Walk With Me

Produced by Kneehigh, a Cornish theatre group, the Walk with Me app links local legends, stories, gossip and memories with walks. It brings alive the paths, beaches and cliffs of Cornwall through moving tales rooted in people and place. Users can listen in GPS mode as they walk through the area or slip into Armchair mode to listen from anywhere else.

In 2020, the group added two new magical audio walks created with the Eden Project. The first walk’s stories are inspired by the plants in each of the Biomes. The second reimagines local residents’ stories of life past and present as visitors wander the meadows and woodlands of the Eden Project’s Outer Estate.

• What problem does it solve for families? This app is better suited to older children. Families can listen to the stories together or alone to add an extra layer of texture and meaning to a visit. The app is a great way to engage older children on repeat visits.

• What makes this app stand out? It combines technology with good old-fashioned storytelling and, unlike many other apps, it doesn’t involve staring at a screen as visitors make their way around the attraction.

3. SensoryFriendly Shedd Aquarium

Not UK based, but Chicago’s SensoryFriendly Shedd Aquarium app deserves a special mention for the lengths it goes to to welcome visitors with disabilities.

The content is extensive. There’s a sensory friendly map, communication pictures, a timer tool for each exhibition, an editable schedule that includes the ability to tick off an item once it’s been done, and games. There’s also information about admission, accessibility, busy times and places, and hours, of course.

• What problem does it solve for families? The app is invaluable for parents visiting with children with autism and sensory processing disorders. It helps familiarise visitors of all ages with the attraction before they arrive and it’s a helping hand on arrival.
• What makes this app stand out? The in-depth visual, audio and written descriptions of each exhibition, so visitors know exactly what to expect.

3. National Trust

The National Trust’s app has been around for a while but it’s timeless in its simplicity. It includes a description for each of 585 National Trust places in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, plus essential visitor information: opening times, directions, facilities and access, current events listings and contact details. Users can filter by 13 different categories including family friendly, save their favourite places and easily find out what’s on at nearby National Trust places.

As soon as users open the app, they see the places listed in order of distance – assuming location services is enabled. If not, users can search by town, county or postcode or see an A-Z list. But the beauty of this app for families really lies in that location-based functionality.

• What problem does it solve for families? As well as being an easy source of essential visitor information, such as opening times and facilities, the app flags up other National Trust places nearby, thus helping to answer the question, “What shall we do next?”
• What makes this app stand out? It’s a great example of how to include lots of different attractions in one app. It also demonstrates how beneficial collaborating with other visitors and tourism businesses in your vicinity can be; by recommending other things to do and see nearby, visitors are more likely to spend longer exploring the area.

5. Pulborough WildArt Trail

A fine example of a collaborative effort, the Pulborough WildArt Trail app is part of the Pulborough Community Partnership project to promote the local area.

The app blends sculptures by a local artist with augmented reality, information about the local wildlife and landscape and GPS-activated history information points, along a 2.5 mile trail. There are two themed trails: the Wildlife Trail and the Giant’s Trail.

Kids love the Giant’s Trail. Wherever owl markers appear along the trail, the app can be used to meet the Giant and answer three multiple choice quiz questions. Complete the trail and correctly answer all the questions to win a RSPB pin badge. The app saves families’ progress along the trail too, so there’s no pressure to complete the trail in one go.

• What problem does it solve for families? It successfully engages a digitally savvy younger audience, encouraging them to get out and about in nature.
• What makes this app stand out? This is truly an app for the kids. The augmented reality Pulborough Giant is an endearing figure that children love snapping selfies with – and it’s easy to share them on social media straight away, which helps promote the WildArt Trail to other families.