Tourism is a tricky business. Mobile Wallet Passes Make It Easier.
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Tourism is a tricky business. Visitors arrive at a destination from all over the world, often tired, short of time and unsure of their way around. Many won’t speak the local language. For some, this will be their only visit and this destination is probably just one stop in an itinerary packed with flights, transfers and hotel reservations. Making a visitor’s stay a memorable one is no easy task.
Your challenge is to catch their attention before they arrive, look after them while they are with you, and keep in touch after they’ve left. It’s a big ask.
What are Mobile Wallet Passes and Why Do They Matter for Tourism
This is where mobile wallet passes come into play. They sit in the Apple and Google Wallet replacing paper tickets, plastic cards and printed confirmations. Built on open formats, tourism businesses can issue wallet passes without having to create an app and visitors can add them to their digital wallets with one tap from an email, a website or by scanning a QR code. They might find that QR code in an in-flight magazine or follow a link from a social media post.
For the tourism industry, the relatively small step of moving from paper tickets to digital wallet passes makes a big difference to potential revenues. It doesn’t matter what your business is – a major shopping mall, a theme park, a museum, a specialist craft store, a heritage site – or where you are in the world, just about any tourism business can benefit from a mobile wallet pass.
The visitor already has a long list must-carry list to consider when travelling abroad. A list that includes their passport, mobile phone and laptop. Don’t ask them to also carry printed tickets, passes or confirmation slips when all of these can be effortlessly stored in their Apple or Google wallet. Make life easy for your visitor.
Passes are cheaper than printing, and much cheaper than building a dedicated app. They sit on a visitor’s phone throughout the trip, which gives you the chance to send them updates and offers. Scanning at entry points is faster, it also reduces fraud and gives you valuable data when a pass is redeemed.
Top 5 Reasons the Tourism Industry Chooses Digital Wallet Passes
Tourist attractions see huge benefits from digital wallet passes.
Visitors are often one-time customers who do not want to download an app. Yes, a major theme park selling annual passes for repeat business from local customers can justify this, but a museum or castle which often sees people visit only once, cannot.
Tourists often have poor mobile phone connectivity. International visitors may not want to pay roaming charges and must often rely on patchy public Wi-Fi. A digital pass, saved in a wallet, works offline.
The Digital Pass remains accessible after entry. Passes can be updated to provide a site map, or to offer discounts in a local café or gift shop.
Visitors speak many languages. Tourist attractions draw visitors from many countries, speaking many languages. Digital wallet passes can be localised, based on the phone’s language settings. This avoids the need for a venue to print entry instructions in different languages.
Opportunities for joint tickets and partner offers. Many tourist attractions are part of city-wide passes or combine their tickets with those from nearby sites or with local hotels and tour operators. A single wallet pass can therefore represent a host of different venues or outlets.
Clickable links. Apple Wallet allows you to add up to two clickable links to your digital pass, with a predefined list of choices. Google Wallet allows one clickable link to either a website or app.
Mobile Wallet Passes are the Gift that Keeps on Giving
The digital wallet pass is a modern-day gift to the tourism industry. It works offline, can appear on the lock screen automatically as a visitor approaches a destination and can be scanned in seconds. Queues move faster and staff spend less time resolving issues than they do when dealing with paper tickets or physical plastic cards.
A wallet pass stays on the visitor’s phone for the remainder of their trip, which gives businesses a direct way to continue to share offers and partner discounts and to send a ‘Thank you for your Visit’ message once they have left.
Add Clickable Links to your Wallet Passes
Digital wallet passes are evolving. Apple and Google Wallet now let you add clickable links straight onto your passes, giving you yet more chances to engage with your visitors.
Whichever wallet your visitors use these links can make a big difference. Clicking on one can help them to discover your latest offers or plan their next visit.
With iOS27, you can add up to two buttons below each pass in the Apple Wallet. You choose them from a set list provided by Apple. These include choices like ‘View Offer’ or ‘Check Membership Details’.
Google Wallet allows you to add a single button to the front of each pass. You write a label, up to 30 characters in length, and choose whether to send your visitor to a website or app.
Looking after visitors can be hard work, but mobile passes for the Apple and Google Wallet make it easier. They give your visitors a frictionless, app-free way to carry their tickets, with no printouts to lose, or emails to scroll through. Digital wallet passes work offline, speak their language and get visitors into your destination faster. These Apple and Google wallet passes give you ways to continue to engage with your visitors, long after they have left the destination. Best of all, they’re within reach for businesses big and small.
It you’d like to know more about how to implement a digital wallet tourism pass strategy for your business, get in touch with our team at PassEntry. We’d love to show you how our platform can support you.
