Attractions.io, a leading creator of mobile visitor apps, has shared details of its partnership with Magnolia Plantation & Gardens, in Charleston, US.
The attraction covers more than 400 acres of protected wetlands and is home to 267 species of birds and many hundreds of species of plants. It needed a way to orient and inform guests while optimising staff time and minimising paper waste.
In response, Attractions.io developed a new mobile app which launched in March 2023 and has since been downloaded 60,000 times.
Enhanced visitor experience
Magnolia Plantation & Gardens was founded as a rice plantation more than 300 years ago. During the 19th century’s antebellum period, it was reimagined as a public garden with unique azalea and camellia collections. Its romantic-style garden’s original walks, seasonal displays of colour and distinctive horticultural features such as the Audubon Swamp Garden and the historic River Walk now attract thousands of visitors each year.
The Magnolia Plantation & Gardens team has extensive horticultural knowledge and likes to share this expertise with visitors, but staff members found they were spending a significant amount of time answering basic queries such as directions or tour times. Wait times at the entrance and welcome centre could be lengthy, and paper maps were helpful but conflicted with the attraction’s sustainable ethos.
As a result, Magnolia Plantation & Gardens turned to Attractions.io’s mobile app platform to free up staff and reduce the need for a paper map while supporting its online ticket sales, wayfinding, and information sharing.
Ivey Gibbs, sales operations manager at Magnolia Plantation & Garden, says: “We wanted a solution that was more eco-friendly, and we also wanted guests to be able to navigate the grounds on their own and have a great experience without needing staff at every corner.”
The app features a hand-illustrated map with a ‘What’s in Bloom’ category that shares information about what’s in season, and enables the attraction to publish parts of their horticultural archives with ease.
“With a garden of our size, we’re never going to get to a point where you can identify each and every plant. So we focus on what’s in bloom,” says Gibbs.
“In the winter, when our camellias and azaleas are blooming, we do a specified camellia walking tour that we advertise in the app. It’s not the same as a full archival cataloguing system, but for the public, it’s incredible because we can easily rotate what we share with guests. Our horticulture team is very excited about this feature.”
The app’s mobile ticketing functionality has reduced queue times at the attraction’s entrance, and users also benefit from push notifications with alerts on daily activities, membership promotions, and weather alerts.
Essential offering
When Magnolia Plantation & Gardens released its mobile app in March 2023 it quickly began working to engage its employees.
Gibbs says: “Our leadership team has been great at promoting the app, and the buy-in from the top levels of management has trickled down quickly. Staff now use it at every opportunity to enhance guest interactions. Whether it’s self-guided tours, integrated ticketing with Gateway’s Galaxy solution or push notifications, the app has become essential.”
As a result, uptake for the app has been strong and it is downloaded by over half of the guests who visit the ticket window. In addition, the attraction reports that tour leaders are also often using the app.
“On busy days, staff can direct guests to the app for information, reducing the time spent at the window,” Gibbs says. “And for our staff who aren’t public-facing, it reduces the interruptions to their workday because guests now have the information they need in their pocket.”
Magnolia Plantation & Gardens no longer need to provide a paper map with each ticket, which has significantly reduced its print costs and supports the attraction’s sustainability objectives.
The app has received excellent responses. 93% of visitors have given positive feedback post-visit. Furthermore, 60% of app users consent to ongoing communications, which exceeds the industry norms, and the attraction is seeing online ticket sales of between 22 and 40%, even though the attraction has not yet focused on promoting the app’s native purchasing feature.
Gibbs says: “Less than 20% of users delete the app after their visit, which is a good sign. We don’t spam them with notifications; we categorise them based on their activity, like if they’ve been on-site within the last eight hours or if we have an upcoming event we think they’d be interested in.”
Magnolia Plantation & Gardens can now also capture precise visitor data, and has been using the app’s heat maps to determine key points of interest and where guests spend the most time. The team is also investigating the benefits of tracking dwell time.
“Working with Attractions.io has been a refreshing experience because they’re genuinely invested in our success,” says Gibbs.
“Attractions.io hits it out of the park with responsiveness. The team wants to hear about what we need and the struggles we’re facing, and they’ve really championed us to help make our guest experience better.”
Last month, Attractions.io released the inaugural Digital Guest Experience Report in partnership with Cinchio Solutions at IAAPA Europe Expo 2024. This new report offers insights for operators, revealing ways they can adapt to visitors’ evolving demands and take advantage of emerging technologies like AI.
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