In today’s modern age, resort, park, and attraction operators must leverage a collection of different technologies to optimize and run their businesses effectively. Choosing the right software and systems, often called a “tech stack,” brings measurable benefits for capturing year-round revenue growth and significant enhancements to guests’ overall experience.

For example, paying customers are accustomed to the convenience of purchasing tickets and passes online, and expect to have a seamless, intuitive experience from evaluating options through the entire checkout and purchase confirmation process. Guests frequently plan ahead and make notable financial decisions about their visit before they even set foot on your property. Outdated systems run slower and lead to frequent failures, which reflects poorly on your brand and drives revenue loss.

Because modern guest expectations are shifting more rapidly than ever, the agility of a purpose-built ticketing platform and an up-to-date attraction ticketing software stack affects all business angles. From high-converting e-commerce to optimizing real-time ticket demands and making operational efficiency decisions well in advance, having a suite of complementary software that works for the future of your ticketed attraction ensures long-term success. Additionally, it gives you the power to stay competitive while engaging with guests in a meaningful way.

Sticking with a Legacy Software Kills Growth

Legacy systems are, essentially, older computing software systems that are incompatible with newer systems. Using outdated tech is a big mismatch with the seamless digital standards people expect nowadays. When technology moves on, so do the users. That poses a problem for the attraction industry, where the ease and happiness from every customer interaction — online or on-site — are crucial for great experiences that bring back guests over and over. Oftentimes, these outdated systems can still meet the need for what it was originally designed for, but at what cost?

Risks of keeping legacy systems: 

Meeting Expectations Becomes Impossible.

Compared to cloud-based solutions, legacy systems can hold back innovation resulting in decreased functionality. From an internal perspective, it can be difficult for operations to keep the software running, scale the business, and maintain a competitive advantage. From an external perspective, the lackluster platform limits user capabilities, user experience, and confidence in the brand.

Legacy Systems Make Security Worse, Not Better.

Eventually, support for a legacy system stops, leaving it vulnerable. Exposure to technical problems pose a threat for cybersecurity risks, which exponentially increase the risk that small human errors can lead to significant issues. Gartner predicts that by 2025, lack of talent or human failure will be responsible for over half of significant cyber incidents. In a recent survey, 69% of employees revealed that they have bypassed their organization’s cybersecurity guidance in the past 12 months. 

Siloed Data Threatens Business Interactions.

Siloed data is a collection of data that is not easily or fully accessible by other branches in the same organization. Legacy systems are notorious for this because, at the time of their inception, the capability to data share did not exist. Although it may seem harmless, silos can stunt growth and cause major gaps in the holistic view of the company. Booking tickets and in-park experiences can also be fragmented with multiple communication points and payment channels.

Some attractions stay with legacy software far longer than they should with the mindset of, “Why fix what isn’t broken?” The truth is outdated software can’t keep up with the digital needs of both in-house and consumer-facing needs, which eventually leads to greater consequences in revenue growth and clunky guest experiences. Effectively, this software may not be “broken” now but soon will be. Ultimately, outdated software can cause a domino effect of unpredictability. When it comes to modernizing your legacy system, any change you make will be for the better. 

5 Core Components of a Modern Software Stack 

The best tech stacks are used to make difficult processes easier, drive efficiency, analyze performance, and personalize customer interactions. For attraction ticketing software, this ties directly with the management of rapidly changing consumer expectations and driving predictable revenue growth. Savvy park operators and owners use these 5 stack components to make a substantial difference and maximize return on investment: 

The best tech stacks are used to make difficult processes easier, drive efficiency, analyze performance, and personalize customer interactions. For attraction ticketing software, this ties directly with the management of rapidly changing consumer expectations and driving predictable revenue growth. Savvy park operators and owners use these 5 stack components to make a substantial difference and maximize return on investment: 

Customer relationship management (CRM): CRM software enables you to track every interaction your consumer has with your business. Instead of just storing guest information, CRMs activate this data, allowing you to market to specific segments of your audience based on the consumers’ activity stage. This allows you to personalize the consumers’ interactions with your brand and keeps the business top of mind, which drastically improves a customer’s lifetime value. In other words, brand loyalty.

Pricing and revenue management: Ready to make the most out of every dollar spent with a healthy return on investment (ROI)? Sophisticated revenue management software, otherwise known as a modern pricing strategy, intelligently transforms the booking process and informs decisions around pricing. It has taken the practice far beyond what would have ever been possible with manual pricing and, instead, strategically manages inventory to sell the product to the right customer, at the right time, for the right price. Game-changing pricing strategies, like Dynamic Pricing, reacts instantly to consumer demand and adjusts ticket prices accordingly to maximize yield and growing revenue all year round.

E-commerce platform: Nearly half of all travelers intend to purchase attraction tickets online. This is the backbone of how your business can financially transact online and successfully fulfill orders operationally. As the ski, park, and amusement industry continues to evolve toward a digital shopping environment, it will eventually define how well attractions run their businesses, period. There are varying ways of powering e-commerce platforms, which include a simple fixed listing that adds an item to a shopping cart for check out, to more advanced pricing and revenue cloud store tools that offer the ability to upsell experiences, cross-sell items, or use promotional or discount codes.

Point of Sale (POS): A cutting-edge POS system is operated from the cloud and allows attractions to streamline retail operations and process payments, including card payments, cash payments, and payments made using mobile wallets. POS systems can now link up with wider company data and then be used by other components of the tech stack, ensuring one easy-to-use interface that’s fully integrated across all areas of a ticketed attraction. Using a legacy POS causes frequent manual updates and could put data at risk that cannot be recovered if servers malfunction, crash, get hacked, are stolen, or are damaged.

Channel Manager (CM): If you sell bookable experiences online, you can increase your sales by working with other third-party resellers and online travel agencies (OTAs). Ticket aggregators, often called “Channels,” help you attract more customers from places all around the world. Channel Managers or Distribution service platforms help you control your sales in one centralized place with flexible APIs to broaden your reach. For years, hotel systems have been using CMs to list their room availability on sites such as Expedia and ticketed attractions have been using this software to sell tours, activities, and more through distribution partners like Google and Viator. 

Ask the Right Questions Ahead of an Upgrade

Modernizing your tech stack can either be a slow, piece-by-piece, upgrade or a complete renovation. The beautiful side to building a stack is that it is uniquely yours; designed to fit your needs and resolve your pain points for attraction ticketing. Similar to building a house, building a new software infrastructure or a piece of it requires some consideration and forethought. Creating a well-rounded sleek modern system that empowers long-term growth. If you’re wondering where to get started, we suggest asking yourself — and your team — these simple questions to help address issues early and keep your software update planning on track:

• What are overall business goals and department goals?
• Do we like our current tech and how well it serves the business? 
• What tech makes things easier, better, or faster?
• What tech remains only because it feels too painful to move away from?
• How does the staff rate the current tools for preference and frequency use?
• Are there any gaps in tech that everyone wishes the business had?
• How well does the current tech communicate throughout all facets of the business? 
• Is data readily accessible across various platforms and users?
• How secure is the tech and who is responsible for maintaining that security?
• How much software upkeep is required by employees versus how much is “baked into” the software solution or license?

Making a Smooth Transition to Modern Tech

The way you build your tech stack influences so much about your company and choosing what to add deserves extra care. These tips can help you get started with your software roadmap:

Demo and Trial.

There is nothing more powerful than a great product demo with solution experts. When considering a new technology, it’s an important step in getting a feel for the value of the software and determining if it solves your pain points.

Ease of Use.

The term “user-friendly” does not just apply to consumers using websites. Modern software today gets developed with the user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) in mind. Consider your employees’ experience and if they can use this tech stack successfully without additional training after launch.

Integration.

The whole of a “stack” is that all the parts can work together. Regardless of the size of your ticketed attraction business, if you are working with multiple software tools, you’ll likely want help to integrate them so they complement one another. Map out any needed integrations to ensure the technology system works side-by-side with your stack.

Implementation, Onboarding, and Support.

It’s meaningful to have dedicated experts ready to partner every step of the way for onboarding, account management, and to bring future cutting-edge opportunities that align with modern trends. This also gives you the ability to have a direct line of communication for any complex needs or priorities.

Innovation and Improvement.

As your business progresses, the tech stack should have the potential to scale sufficiently. Choose a software solution that allows for adding new compelling features and enhancements alongside system updates to repair any issues that could arise. 

Getting Set-Up for the Future

Tech stacks have come as a welcome relief for business leaders who have replaced their outdated legacy systems. Today, almost every sector of travel and hospitality has embraced cloud-based software stacks that provide a unified solution – from airlines to car rental companies to restaurants and ticketed attractions. Regardless if you run a park, resort, or attraction, a modernized ticketing system can revolutionize your platform and significantly boost your sales. The results are well worth the effort. 

Once you’ve made the switch to a new and improved system, you can reap the benefits of improved efficiency, overall guest satisfaction, increased revenue, and the success of your business for years to come. 

We Can Help

Catalate makes it easy to make a change. Get in touch today to learn more.

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Catalate is a global pricing and e-commerce company empowering ski resorts, parks, and attractions to increase online revenue. As the only purpose-built ticketing platform for the industry, Catalate has developed successful strategies for hundreds of Partners across $1 billion in online sales.