An unpleasant parking experience can ruin a guest's stay in a holiday park before it starts. Read to see how you can transform your facility with smart parking.
If you run a holiday park, you know more than anyone the importance of offering a great experience to your visitors. After all, they spend their hard-earned money on vacation and deserve to have everything going as smoothly as possible. That's why you work tirelessly to make sure every detail is perfect.
However, one thing often trips up even the best-run holiday parks: parking. Finding a parking space in a holiday park can be incredibly stressful, especially during peak season.
The last thing your guests want is to start their long-awaited, meticulously planned vacation scrambling for parking. Fortunately, you can avoid this problem entirely by implementing smart parking solutions.
Read on to uncover how smart parking can help you transform the holiday park experience for your guests.
What is smart parking?
Smart parking is a blanket term that means using technology, specifically the internet of things, artificial intelligence, data analytics, cloud computing, and customer-focused end-user mobile platforms to improve the parking experience. Smart parking solutions come in various forms. Some common options include:
- Automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) systems: use cameras to identify vehicles and track their movement to optimize flow and enhance security.
- Ground sensor networks: detect parking space occupancy and update parking managers and drivers in real time.
- Integrated payment systems: allow drivers to pay for parking without walking to a payment booth.
- Mobile and web-based platforms help drivers find available parking spots, navigate to them, and even book spaces in advance.
- IoT-enabled parking meters: enable drivers to pay for parking using various options and provide real-time information on space availability.
- Analytics-based solutions: provide real-time data for use in optimizing parking spaces and resources.
While you can get a system offering these features separately, most smart parking providers bundle them in a comprehensive package. For instance, Pavemint's suite of On the Lot Tools enables parking lots to accept myriads of digital payments, offer digital parking reservation services, and harness data analytics to improve operations.
How can smart parking solutions benefit your holiday park?
Smart parking can do wonders for your holiday park. You can optimize how your guests park their cars, offer contactless payments and advance parking space reservations, and even collect data for future improvements.
Below are five compelling reasons to consider smart parking.
- Smooth, controlled vehicle access
With a smart parking solution, you can be sure that your guests will have a seamless experience when entering and exiting your holiday park. Smart parking takes the guesswork out of managing vehicle access and movement thanks to automated access and real-time monitoring.
For instance, using automatic license-plate recognition can help automate the verification process for guests. The system can scan and identify the license plate when a vehicle arrives at your holiday park. Then, if the guest has already paid for parking or has a reservation, the barrier will automatically open, and they can proceed to their spot.
Not only does this automation reduce the time your guests spend waiting to get into the park, but it also eliminates the need for someone at the entrance.
Moreover, beyond park entry points, a network of cameras and ground sensors interfaced with a central, cloud-based platform can give you real-time visibility of vehicle movement throughout your park. That way, you can know, at any given time, the number of cars in your facility, the parking spaces available, and the level of congestion on the roads and direct new guests accordingly.
- Easy parking management with advance reservations
If your holiday park gets busy during peak season, you can use a smart parking solution to manage demand proactively and take the strain off your staff. An online parking reservation system allows guests to book parking spots in advance and choose their preferred spot.
For example, with a solution like Pavemint, your guests can book parking spots in advance through the Pavemint app or website. Then, once they arrive at the park, all they need to do is drive to their reserved spot and park.
Reservations improve your guests' experience while making it much easier for your staff to manage vehicle entry. Rather than juggling a first-come, first-served basis and dealing with the resulting lineups and congestion, your parking operators can simply guide vehicles to their reserved spots.
- Seamless revenue management
Another significant advantage of smart parking is that it gives you more control over how you generate and manage revenue from your parking spaces. With a smart parking solution, you can offer various payment options, including contactless payments, making it easier for guests to pay while avoiding the costly errors associated with cash handling and manual bookkeeping.
Smart parking also allows you to set different rates for different types of guests, vehicles, booking procedures, and parking times. For example, you can charge a higher rate for RVs and other larger vehicles or give a discount for guests who book their spot in advance. You can also offer package deals that bundle parking and other amenities, such as camping or access to motels.
What's more? Smart parking makes it easier to monitor usage and track your parking revenue over time. That way, you can adjust rates as needed to ensure you are maximizing your earnings from your parking spaces.
- Enhanced security
Security is a must-have in holiday parks. Not only do you need to protect your guests' vehicles from theft and vandalism, but you also need to ensure the safety of everyone on the premises. Smart parking can help you achieve both of these objectives.
For example, a solution with license plate recognition can automatically identify vehicles that do not belong in the park. If a car is flagged as suspicious, you can receive an alert and take appropriate action.
Furthermore, with a network of cameras and sensors in place, you can monitor activity around the clock and better understand what is happening in your park at all times. This visibility can enable you to identify potential security threats and take timely measures to prevent them.
- Continuous, data-driven improvements
Finally, one of the most valuable aspects of parking is that it provides real-time, accurate data that you can use to improve your operations on an ongoing basis. By understanding how your guests use your parking spaces, you can make informed decisions about where to allocate more resources, how to optimize traffic flow, and what changes to make to improve the overall experience.
For instance, data from the Pavemint suite can help uncover the most reserved parking spots. With this information, you can choose to charge a higher rate for these areas or, better yet, use them as benchmarks for all your spaces to improve the overall parking experience.
Similarly, payment data can reveal the payment methods your guests prefer. So, if you notice that only a few guests are using a particular payment option, you can discontinue it to reduce unnecessary costs.
Modernize your holiday park with smart parking today
Managing a holiday park can be difficult, especially when you have to constantly check whether visitors can access the premises and find parking. You want guests to feel safe and welcome, not spend all your time managing vehicles.
The right smart parking solution will give you complete automated control of vehicle access and movement throughout your holiday park. That way, you can worry less about who drives into your facility and where they park and focus on giving your guests' holiday the best possible experience.
Want to know more about smart parking and the best options for your holiday park? Contact Pavemint today, and let's get you started.