DISNEY MOBILIZES THE THEME PARK EXPERIENCE
I’ve been paying a bit of attention to Disney news of late (since I’m heading to Florida in April) and stumbled onto some interesting reports emerging about a trial Disney are conducting using Nintendo DS handhelds to provide guests with interactive theme park guides.
The way I understand it, the guides provide guests with what is essentially an interactive brochure containing details about park attractions, dining options and parade times as well as content like games and wallpapers. The DS is an interesting choice of device for the trial and I’m assuming that a proper rollout would cater to a host of mobile devices (i.e. smart phones and PDAs).
It gets even more interesting if you consider the potential for the devices to accept live feeds of data for things like waiting times on attractions, and character appearances – the kind of funcional content that would help you plan and optimise your time “in park”.
There is even “chatter” that the current ticket based “FASTPASS” system will shift to a screen based media and that guests of disney hotel properties will be able to book these and download them through the television set in their hotel room. This trend for screen based barcodes is common in Asia with Japan and South Korea leading the takeup of mobile device integration to the point of sale and retail experience.
This topic has been top on mind at the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) annual convention in NYC this week with mobile coupons and barcode readers on handsets indentified as the next bandwagon retailers must job on. More coverage on the NRF Convention here
