- Consumer experience is how ROI will be measured from use of AI
- As soon as mature, system will be better efficiency of operating park
The days of going into theme parks ‘blind’ and praying which you have picked a day with less crowds that will shorten your wait time for trips may be finally coming to an end.
Thanks to an AI powered Virtual Line (VQ) solution presented in Nov 2021 by Genting SkyWorlds, in partnership with Alibaba Impair, visitors can now pre-book the rides they wish to go for, and even eating place bookings, and in the process eliminate the top eliminate joy factor that will theme park visitors, specifically those who have young kids in tow, and indeed, those adults youthful at heart too, have experienced to endure.
Fed with real-time data, VQ is integrated into SkyWorld’s existing mobile app (which only has a 2 . 5 ranking on the App Store), to better allow the park to control crowd distribution and optimise ride capacity. The objective is to deliver more engaging visitor encounters and, during maximum periods, allow the theme park to handle a higher volume of crowd without compromising on that consumer experience. 
Claiming this to be the first AI powered theme park queue solution in Southeast Asia, Greg Pearn (pic) , Vice President, Head of Theme Park Functions, Resorts World Genting , states the partnership with Alibaba Cloud had been key.
“They arrived with an open brain and went out of their way to understand the customer experience we wanted to create. ”
Alibaba was grateful for the opportunity as well. This was its first alternative targeted at the theme park market. With over 4 million customers for its cloud business that was launched in 2009 and has subsequently grown to be a key part of the Alibaba Group, “We are the backbone of the group since all the businesses within the group run on Alibaba Cloud, ” says Kun Huang, General Supervisor of Malaysia, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence .
With cloud adopting soaring since the outbreak, Alibaba Cloud, rated the third most used cloud service globally by Forrester Study, after Amazon Internet Services and Microsoft Azure, has been aggressively growing its worldwide market share.
Starting in Malaysia in 2017, it already has a long connection with Genting Team Malaysia, which Kun Huang (pic) identifies as a pioneer client.
Still that didn’t make them a shoo-in to win the work from Genting SkyWorlds when Greg came into his role in 2018. Looking at exactly what he had to work with, he realised he had a problem. “We have a relatively small area at 26 acres and will have 90 rides when fully functional. We need to ensure that we are able to offer guests the best experience possible while maximising efficiency for all of us. ”
A veteran from the theme park sector, Greg knew he had to rely on technology for the answer. “The vast majority of theme recreational areas are still very traditional in how they function and manage site visitors, ” he mentioned. That wasn’t likely to be good enough intended for him.
The visit a partner eventually came down to an established UK listed provider of theme park solutions and Alibaba Cloud. But the amusement park solution provider has been offering what they currently had while Alibaba Cloud, eager to enter into a new niche was willing to be a genuine partner. “They did not come in with any arrogance and say these are the solutions we think you need to be using, ” said Greg.
Work on the task started in mid 2019 with only a small team of 6 on Skyworlds aspect. Surprisingly there were simply no techies, who only came into the picture on the Genting Malaysia side when the remedy was ready to be integrated to the SkyWorlds app.
The project team was most business people who knew the industry well and were familiar with various other theme parks which had implemented comparable systems. “We shared detailed requirements plus our expectations associated with what we wanted to obtain with Alibaba Impair, and how our guests should experience the park, ” stated Greg. A lot of time was invested in sharing plus communication this as well as the Alibaba Cloud team was up to the challenge, said Greg, who else declined to share just how much it cost yet added, “It cost us a nice bit on money but our key concentrate on measuring the RIO DE JANEIRO from this investment is all about customer satisfaction. ”
With survey after survey showing queue periods to be the biggest aspect that influences theme park experience, it was key for SkyWorlds to have real time visibility of how long the wait around times are for everyone their rides, and using this key information to then, fit it with itineraries in the VQ plus let Alibaba Cloud’s AI engine create real time adjustments to a visitor’s itinerary simply by sending guests to rides that are not so busy.
“Using both historical and real time data of every of the rides, the particular AI will be able to determine which rides offer capacity at any given time, and use another component called Itinerary Planner to help distribute the particular crowd to different rides, which will then enhance their user experience, ” said
Lin En Shu, head of solutions architect, Alibaba Cloud Cleverness Malaysia.
The end result has been the Nov 2021 soft launch of not merely VQ but an Itinerary Planner too which serves as guests’ personal intelligent assistant creating a personalised plan for the park visit and offering benefits. Whether visitors make their rides and restaurants reservations ahead of time or purchase seat tickets offline and down load the app upon arrival, guests will be able to enjoy a similar connection with having their trip to SkyWorlds planned simply by an AI engine.
As with any AI app, recommendations made will simply get better with time because the AI learns through more data produced from user conduct. “We are still in UAT mode and will also be so for a minimum of a year, ” said Greg referring to consumer acceptance test (UAT) where software is used by actual customers plus feedback elicited. THIS typically takes newly opened theme parks per year to work out not just software but hardware problems and overall website visitor management processes too.
While the end goal is to have all associated with SkyWorld’s 90 trips to be available on VQ, is this early stage 30 rides happen to be enabled with a large amount of effort spent on educating the public about the availability of the feature that will eventually be a chargeable service as exactly how all parks which have a fast track option, implement today. Genting SkyWorlds believes there is absolutely no reason why customers won’t pay for a much more effective fast track service that will sits conveniently in their app.
Read more on: https://www.digitalnewsasia.com/business/genting-skyworlds-partners-alibaba-cloud-deliver-ai-powered-rich-user-experience
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