Mobile app helps visitors navigate a 1000-year-old Swedish castle

Wenngarn is a small village community with about 500 residents, located 30 minutes outside of Stockholm, Sweden. The homes are built around the Wenngarns slott (Wenngarn Castle), and the community is centered on the baroque castle just like it was during the Middle Ages.
Visitors to Wenngarn can enjoy the beautiful grounds and rich history of the area, as well as use the facilities for meetings or events. On the grounds are restaurants, nurseries, a hotel, a recreation center and even a micro-brewery. The castle and a nearby café are open to the public every day.
How do thousands of monthly visitors discover all that this welcoming landmark has to offer?
That is the question the Wenngarn Group, the organization responsible for the complex’s extensive development, had to answer. The group wants to ensure that it delivers the best possible guest experience.
Theme-park origin
When I visited a large theme park in the United States with my family, finding our way around was a challenge. That is, until one park representative showed us a mobile app that could help us find restaurants, locate other attractions and see the length of lines for rides in real time.
The app transformed what might otherwise have been a stressful visit into a great experience. It became clear that Wenngarn Group could use the same concept at the Wenngarn Castle and grounds.
Wenngarn Group set a goal to enable visitors and residents to use their mobile phones to do everything from opening their hotel room doors to making restaurant reservations.
To help turn its vision into a reality, Wenngarn Group engaged an expert team from IBM Business Partner Sisyfos Digital.
Powered by Bluemix
Sisyfos Digital recommended IBM Bluemix technology for the foundation for the new app. Wenngarn Group was confident that Bluemix was the right fit because it met the group’s needs for speed and scalability. The group wanted to deliver the app on iOS and Android and with Bluemix, so it got a system of pre-built components that can be combined quickly to build, test and deploy working applications with minimal complexity.
Wenngarn Group launched the mobile app in just eight months. Visitors, residents and staff alike can all use the app in for different tasks.
Visitors can learn more about the castle and the culture and the history with the app’s virtual map of the Wenngarn complex. They can also find parking, cafés and museums.
Residents and hotel guests can use the app to open the door to the gym or conference center.
Service workers know which hotel rooms are ready to be cleaned or any requests for maintenance made by another app user who may have noticed something not working properly.
The information in the app can be updated using the back-office management feature, so changes can be made without the need to involve a developer.
Better service with technology
Wenngarn Group has optimized hospitality at the castle and estate, because the app has enabled better service. It makes the experience richer, more personal and more customized for users, and helps them make the most out of the complex. The app improves user satisfaction and inspires repeat business.
One next step for the app is adding payment functionality, enabling people to make purchases with their phones, further streamlining visitor experiences at the Wenngarn Castle and complex.
Read the case study for more about this story.
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Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud