Digital attractions provide data for operators

We at Valo Motion provide digital data utilization reports on all of our games. This data shows an unprecedented post-pandemic boom in the use of our operator’s digital attractions, and gives activity park operators new insight into how to generate business growth in a rapidly shifting market. The data has been collected since 2016 and can help activity park operators better understand how to run more competitive and modern businesses. 

Understand attraction performance

Utilization numbers on each game give our operators insights into how different attractions at their park are performing and when. Focusing on attractions that are capable of generating digital utilization reports is a key factor for operators to thrive and compete in a changing landscape.

According to our data reports that cover an accumulation of 1000+ units installed globally, there has been a massive spike in usage since spring 2021. Many machines are up 30% in use from pre-pandemic times. Furthermore, park operators in the US reported to the company that they are making 15–20% more money than they did before the pandemic, because people are now excited to come back to parks.

Pictured above is our data on the games played globally on an average amount of hours per day. You can clealy see how the pandemic affected the use in 2020 and 2021. However, the games are currently played around 3,000 hours per day in all locations – which equals o about 125 days.

According to Sven Rösch, Head of Sales at Valo Motion, “Operating a park relly well isn’t easy, and it’s something that operators worry about every day. Many activity parks haven’t yet shifted to full digitalization – they don’t know how their individual attractions are performing. This means that knowing things like where and when to put staff, when to clean, what attractions are popular and so on comes down to guessing, which then results in increased headaches and the loss of time and money for their businesses.”

Attract new digital native customers

It is also important to acknowledge the changing demands of the young customers that parks appeal to. Generation Z and Alpha grew up with digital entertainment in their hands and at home, and that is what they demand when they go out to have fun. Parks that once relied on traditional, analogue attractions need to adapt if they want to remain competitive and appeal to a new generation. 

“The biggest competitor our operators have is not the leisure venue across the street, it’s home entertainment. Take a video game like Fornite, they can hit over 30 million players a day, and those players are our prime target audience. Video games are a major competitor. By digitalizing parks, operators are appealing to today’s kids while simultaneously optimizing the park by substantially increasing the information they have to run a healthy business. This is a challenging shift for an industry that has relied on traditional attractions for ages, but this is what operators need to do if they want completely new insight into how to run their businesses in the modern world,” continues Rösch.

According to Forbes, the era of digital transformation is here for companies of all sizes and types, from Fortune 500s to startups. The activity park industry has been slow to adapt to digital solutions, but it is time that these businesses are run with the same modern advantages that other industries have at their fingertips. Utilizing digitalization and collecting data makes it possible for companies to follow their operations more clearly, and it makes setting company goals much easier.

“This is a different market than it was only 3 years ago, and in order to adapt to the changes parks need that digital data and they also need to provide digital attractions to the younger generation. Our data shows that kids love our digital attractions, because the play rate is a great extent higher than the POS (point of sale) at the parks. This means people are buying a ticket to the park and playing our games numerous times. By providing these solutions, we could actually change how operators work and hopefully encourage the industry to shift towards digitalization for better business models,” says Raine Kajastila, CEO of Valo Motion. "We also measure our success with the data, and the most important metric is how many players we move everyday. Now we can have 140,000 plays in a day globally. To really make an impact, our next major goal is to reach one million fun-filled and active plays per day.”