Before the outbreak of the coronavirus, most of us had never even heard the phrase social distancing. Now, those two simple words are the basis of one of the principle guidelines that museums and attractions need to follow as they emerge from lockdown, that being capacity management.
Governments around the world have set capacity restrictions for public spaces so that people can maintain the required social distance, be that 1.5 meters or 2 meters, during their visit. And it’s not just governments that want social distancing guidelines in place and enforced. More than 50% of consumers believe it’s the responsibility of the venue to manage crowd control and enforce social distancing guidelines.
So, what is capacity management?
For museums and attractions, capacity management refers to controlling the number of visitors in their venue at any given time. Before the coronavirus, only venues with large numbers of visitors would have needed to worry about having too many customers. Now, almost all museums and attractions will need to worry about this.
The capacity management challenge is a tricky one to satisfy – especially without an online reservation system. Museums and attractions without an online reservation system can’t encourage visitors to book in advance, they can’t welcome as many visitors per day without a timeslot system, and they can’t rely on having one good day a week of visitors. They won’t be allowed to let them all in.
Managing capacity with an online reservation system
An online reservation system can:
- Help you attract visitors to your venue
- Spread out visitors with time-slotted entries
- Encourage visitors to visit your venue throughout the week
When thinking about which system to go with, consider the following: you don’t want to add your staff’s load, and you want something that’s flexible yet precise. Above all, you want something that’s easy to implement and use. A good online reservation system will help you prepare for visitors in advance, foster good communication with your customers, aid your staff, and integrate well into your current website.
The Tiqets Booking Engine, for example, is a white-label ticketing solution that allows customers to book with real-time availability without ever leaving your venue's website. This means that the booking engine can be integrated seamlessly and easily into your own site.
With the Booking Engine, you can limit the number of bookings per day and offer time-slotted bookings. This way you can even manage the number of bookings per hour – or even per half an hour. Thus, you can always comply with capacity restrictions while allowing as many visitors as safely possible into your venue at any given time.
How to use the Tiqets Booking Engine as a capacity management tool:
- You can offer timeslots to customers, which means you can host more customers per day, at different times of the day while still meeting government guidelines on capacity
- You can use the Tiqets check-in system and offer your customers quick and easy contactless entrance. Our free, downloadable ScanApp for Android, Apple iOS, and laptops is easy to use on-site
- You can add a maximum capacity per timeslot to avoid too many customers at any one time
- To encourage customers to visit at different times, you can use off-peak period pricing models and control your flow of customers
- You can offer advanced-day booking discounts to help with your capacity planning
- You can use Tiqets' 24/7 customer support service to notify visitors about last-minute closures and to help with canceling or changing a booking
These combined features of the Tiqets Booking Engine create an easy-to-use solution for capacity management issues. It can effortlessly address some of the other new measures in place for opening too. For instance, the contactless entrance can help limit touch points and physical contact between staff and employees.
We’re all adapting to the new rules in this unprecedented situation. Make the transition as easy as possible for your visitors and your staff by using a comprehensive capacity management tool.
