Germany: New Mobile Visitor Service at Berlin Zoo
Berlin Zoo recently added a free smartphone app to its visitor service to provide guests with the latest news about the park’s animals, tours and shows as well as with practical information on entrance fees and opening times. Furthermore, smartphone users can make use of an interactive map featuring an integrated search function for animals and places. Especially “one-day visitors” with less time can profit from this service, which is available for both Apple and Android smartphones. They can directly choose to make a customized tour, guided by the mobile phone.
The offer is based on the so-called “Beacon”-technology, which uses a small transmitter to send frequent radio signals in fixed time intervals. “Mobile devices detect the ‘Beacons’ in their surroundings to inform visitors about interesting happenings nearby,” explains Dr. Daniel Werner, CEO of keylight GmbH. His company developed the new app in cooperation with Berlin Zoo. More and more animal information signs will be equipped with such “Beacons” so that the “classical” scanning of QR-codes can be neglected. Besides German and English, the new app is also available in Russian, French and Italian for international guests.
Another novelty at the zoo is its new entrance area at “Lion Gate”, a semicircular courtyard surrounded by a single-story, pavilion-style building designed by the German architecture firm dan pearlman Erlebnisarchitektur GmbH (c.f. EAP news from December 9th, 2015). Henceforth, the courtyard located at Hardenberg Place offers the public a free view into the rhino enclosure, to give a forecast for a visit to Berlin Zoo. Nine new cash desks have been opened to avoid large queuing lines, as well as a service center and a comprehensive souvenir shop. (eap)
