Mexico. In order to improve the experience of visitors to its latest interactive children's city, located in Guadalajara, KidZania sought new solutions to streamline the process of buying access tickets and delivering identification bracelets for children and their adult companions.
To do this, it relied on the versatile solution of self-service digital kiosks integrated by Panasonic de Mexico. By using the kiosks, the public begins to live the new stage 4.0 of KidZania, which contemplates a transformation of the original concept to adapt it to the future that today's children will live.
Of Mexican origin and with a presence in more than 21 countries, KidZania is one of the fastest growing edutainment brands for children in the world. It is an interactive city for children from 1 to 14 years of age that mixes inspiration, fun and learning through role-playing activities. Children can freely explore a city on a scale of more than 7 thousand square meters of surface, where they experience around 100 professions.
"KidZania Guadalajara is our newest park and represents the first 4.0 model of the concept of the small interactive big city that is KidZania. It is a much more digital and fun space, with renewed experiences for visitors," says Eduardo Guevara, Global Technology Director at KidZania. "KidZania turns 20 and the best way to celebrate is by improving our comprehensive offering. Children who visit us want to be code programmers or robotics engineers, become astronauts or fly drones, so we give them more current options, with technology available from the moment they arrive at our facilities," he adds.
Welcome (more nimbly) to the KidZania experience
As part of this new proposal, KidZania sought to optimize the experience of the public when purchasing their tickets. The main objective is to reduce the waiting time of visitors through a line busting system simple and efficient enough so that the public can choose their tickets, pay for them by credit or debit card, obtain their purchase ticket and receive the security bracelets that link the members of a family or group so that the identification or location of children is fast and accurate.
In the first stage of the project, it was decided to implement a solution with five self-service kiosk modules in KidZania Guadalajara.
When making the purchase of tickets, the system assigns a unique number to the transaction and a code that activates the RFID chip integrated in each bracelet. All the bracelets of the same transaction form a group and share the same RFID code, so each family or school group is easily identified through the radio frequency (RF) reader antennas installed throughout KidZania Guadalajara.
With the bracelets it is possible to control the access and exit of minors so that they do not do so without the company of the authorized adults of their group; or, locate a minor who has separated, since in each area of the "city" there are RFID reading antennas that help to know precisely the location of all visitors. The use of RF technology offers a great scope, certainty in its operation and is not intrusive with visitors.
The future of kiosks in KidZania
By integrating the solution of self-service digital kiosks, KidZania Guadalajara meets the three objectives set by the Global Technology team. The first, to offer a better service to the visitor through the reduction of the waiting time in the purchase of their entrance tickets. Second, start with the process of modernization in the attention to the public. And finally, optimize operating costs by reorienting the supervisory staff that was previously dedicated to selling tickets and now focuses on making the visitor experience satisfactory.
The KidZania team is working on defining the metrics to evaluate the performance of this solution. "These types of digital experiences are relatively new in Mexico, but we noticed that people want to have more control of their time so they see a great option at kiosks. For their part, frequent visitors are already familiar with the service," explains Guevara, adding: "Our conventional counters are still in operation, as there are people who require the additional assistance that only a human being can provide."
"On the busiest days and times, a line to buy entrance tickets could last between an hour and an hour and a half, but now, with the self-service kiosk we managed to reduce the process time to 2 or 3 minutes. There are no more lines and you enter immediately, which is essential if we think that we expect the visit of 400 thousand people a year, "concluded Eduardo Guevara of KidZania.
Thanks to these early results, KidZania has decided that Panasonic of Mexico will integrate a similar solution, with eight self-service kiosk modules, for KidZania Dallas, a new center that will open its doors in the fall of 2019 at the Stonebriar Centre in Frisco, Texas.
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