How the ‘Happiest Place on Earth’ can become one of the Smartest… with Foresense

Originally emanating from the Disney marketing department, theme and amusement parks carry connotations of the ‘Happiest Place on Earth.’

Synonymous with ‘fun’ they offer safe, enclosed spaces far removed from the real-world where excitement and exhilaration overwhelm the senses.

The colours, the characters, the movement, the sounds and the smells all combine to foster feelings of joy and delight – in children and adults alike.

This over-stimulation of the mind actually has a lot of clever psychology behind it.

Few stop to think about – or even know of – the use of scent machines and aroma diffusers in Disneyland and other parks to impart certain frames of mind upon patrons.

For example, artificial popcorn scents at entry points encourage patrons to adopt a carnival atmosphere. Strategically placed vanilla scents are designed to bring on hunger pangs and encourage food purchases.

The use of colour – or lack of it is another sleight.

Drab colours dubbed ‘no see-um grey’ and ‘go-away green’ divert the gaze and makes surrounding, more colourful buildings and attractions more enticing.

Even temperature control is used to keep people moving along, or encourage them to stay put for a period of time.

Dark pavement in full sun emanates heat, which keeps people moving along walkways and terraces.

Conversely, merchandise and gift shops are kept cool to encourage people to stay longer and increase likelihood to purchase – so cool that people are happy to buy pullovers and beanie’s in the middle of summer!

In fact Disney has been so successful at manipulating its brand and environments that sociologists use a term coined ‘Disneyfication’ to refer to cultural homogenisation, or a transformation of things and places into more safer, more family friendly, sanitised products for commercial consumption.

Clearly Disney and other theme parks are highly adept at eliciting positive feelings and mind sets.

Now this is all very clever.

Very clever indeed.

But not inherently smart.

The psychology of manipulation in marketing in a controlled environment is nothing new – it’s as old as commerce and entertainment themselves.

In the modern age of technology, Artificial Intelligence is pioneering industry and commerce forward into the future.

Now amusements and theme parks have a powerful new tool to enhance the patron experience, increase safety, and improve efficiency and profitability across all revenue streams.

That tool is Foresense Technologies.

Foresense Technologies is an industry leader in the collection of visitor presence data and the analysis of how people act – and interact – on-site in real world settings to provide real-time analytics of foot traffic inside and around any physical location.

In a similar way to how behavioural data is utilised online through careful analysis of aspects such as dwell time, session duration, and unique and return visitations the Foresense platform collects data through proprietary sensor arrays that integrate with visitors’ smartphones.

The Foresense platform offers an AI powered solution to gain an unprecedented level of insight into patron flow and density and how they utilise and interact with onsite facilities and attractions.

Because the platform is accessible in real-time, highly-informed, proactive decisions can be executed as trends are actually emerging.

Additional staff can be deployed when and where they are needed most to reduce waiting times at entrance points, security posts and other crowd bottlenecks to keep movement flowing and alleviate congestion.

As a complete journey mapping solution, individual patron data such as total time spent on site, and the breakdown of time spent at different areas such as food, restroom, shopping in addition to rides and amusements is collected.

This offers a revolutionary new way to guide commercially based decisions with more detailed, quantifiable data to improve operational KPIs and efficiencies.

With Foresense AI, site managers can identify exactly what areas need improvement to make the site and its facilities more efficient, profitable and patron friendly.

Discover reasons why certain attractions are not performing as expected – and make necessary change.

It will identify the potential for layout and design variations to improve flow and efficiency utilising aggregated data to establish peak demand times for specific sections and individual facilities.

In this way, it provides concrete justification for expenditure on new facilities, equipment or building projects, based upon definitive demand and supply parameters.

Detailed individual profiles can be built to identify casual, frequent and infrequent visitors – and with a direct avenue of communication via push notification technology, offer incentivisation to increase visit frequency and expenditure at the venue itself – or at particular vendors within.

For example, offer real-time discounts on refreshments and merchandise.

Or offer token free gifts of soft drink/soda, or keyrings and postcards – to encourage visitations to food and merchandise vendors.

Utilise this direct communication avenue to enhance the patron experience and make the most out of the time they spend on an individual level.

Notify of any hazards or area closures and eliminate long delays due to peak demand periods for particular attractions by suggesting other amusements options to keep entertainment levels at a maximum.

And because the technology only interacts with individual smartphone identifiers, personal anonymity is completely retained to alleviate any privacy concerns.

The technology can even complement existing security surveillance systems.

The AI platform detects loitering and suspicious behaviours, unauthorised entry access and anticipates crowd crush points to can deploy security staff in real time as issues develop.

The technology can be implemented to address personal safety concerns for staff and patrons alike. For example identify where a person is not moving across an area as normal (such as a carpark), or has been stationary for an excessive amount of time in an area (such as a restroom) indicating collapse, assault or unconsciousness.

For staff productivity, monitor individual workers for arrival and departure times, meal and rest breaks.

Employee movements and exact locations at any point in time can also easily be accessed and automated real time messaging can be implemented to raise alert or alarm.

As we learn to live with COVID, Foresense can also complement existing digital tools to monitor and log patrons as they move across the stadium to assist contact tracers and keep everyone safer.

In this way it can be used to monitor and control the number of people gathering in any given area to address crowd density regulations.

Patrons who bypass QR code scan points can receive digital reminders to check in, taking responsibility out of the hands of attendants and staff.

It can also identify patron vaccination status or those who have not recently received negative COVID test results, where such laws have been introduced.

With a powerful array of AI guided analytical tools, Foresense Technologies will drive theme and amusements parks into a high tech future.

Offering full customisation and dovetail integration into existing apps and management software, existing operations can be taken to a whole new level with true real time interaction for management, staff and patrons alike.

It offers a safer, enhanced user experience for patrons and an inherent ability to improve efficiency and revenue margins for managers and stakeholders.

With irrefutable qualitative data readily available, minute aspects of day-to-day operations can be scrutinised with greater clarity guiding key decisions to improve facilities and attractions – and overall safety and security.

With Foresense guiding well established principals of psychology in theme and amusement parks, the heights of intelligence are matched only by the happiness of their patrons!