WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH … PHOTO AND VIDEO SYSTEMS
Aerial adventure parks and zip line tours have a host of options to provide photos and videos to their customers, but what’s the best route? CAPTURING CUSTOMERS
BY JOSH LASKIN
“If you can get 50,000 customers through the door regardless and want to maximize your per-head take on every customer, you should be selling photos,” says O’Grady. “But if refer- rals and repeat [customers] are more important to you, we recommend giving them away.” O’Grady encourages many of his clients to give photos away. He cites a 2023 Fotaflo study that indicated more than 41 percent of traffic to Saskatchewan adventure park Treeosix’s website was generated through photo sharing. And with the rising influence of social media over the last decade, it’s tough to assign a numerical value to endless shares and tags. TECHNOLOGY The selling-vs-gifting debate isn’t the only thing operators are grappling with. They must also sort through several available methods and technologies for photo sharing, each with their own benefits and challenges.
For decades, amusement parks have offered photos that allow guests to relive the most exhilarating moment of their day. Images of friends on a roller coaster, hands raised over their heads, mouths wide open in fear and exhilaration have been a staple of the experience since the 1980s. Now, many adventure park patrons have the same expectations. “For people doing zip lines and aerial adventure courses, there’s almost an expectation that there’s going to be a photography or video component,” says Nate Pfefferkorn, owner of Action Photo Systems, which offers automati - cally triggered photo and video sys- tems. “If there’s not one, they’re kind of bummed.”
To this end, aerial adventure parks and zip tours have strived to follow a similar model as amusement parks, albeit with new goals and challenges. Now, new technologies and expanded options for digesting digital media have given park operators even more to consider. TO SELL OR NOT TO SELL? Operators have mixed opinions about the value of offering photos to guests, with some seeing it as an additional source of income and others viewing it as an invaluable marketing tool that should be provided for free. According to Ryan O’Grady, CEO of Fotaflo, a software company that helps operators get photos into the hands of their customers, parks need to weigh the two options.
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