Face Recognition, Universal's Response to Disney's MagicBand.

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Universal Has Quite the System in the Works as a Response to Disney's Growing-in-Popularity "MagicBand."

From Parking to Park Entry and Express Lanes on attractions, facial recognition would not only be a cheaper alternative to a wearable device, it would also be quicker and easier for guests who don't understand the technology behind RFID.

As you can imagine, nearly every entertainment destination paid very close attention to Disney’s MagicBand at Walt Disney World since before the initial testing even began. In short, Disney’s MagicBand service was an extremely expensive gamble to help streamline a Walt Disney World vacation with an eye on increasing guest spending. Now that most of the bugs have been ironed out with MyMagicPlus, the majority of the public seems to embrace it. However, the system is far from perfect. MagicBands are expensive to create and ship to homes across the country. Using them at the front entrance of a theme park has definitely improved the efficiency of the lines there, but they seem to have gotten longer at FastPass return points during peak times.

Despite these issues (and more) of Disney’s MagicBand system, all sorts of companies have used the idea as a springboard to enhance their own guest experience from private clubs to cruise ships. However, if you’re looking for an apples to apples comparison of a system to streamline the guest experience, Universal Orlando is about as close as you’re going to get to Walt Disney World pretty much anywhere on the planet. Universal Orlando also has multiple parks, multiple hotels, Universal Express, charging purchases back to the hotel and more. Thus, Universal Orlando has been looking at several different options to improve upon MagicBands from not only a guest perspective but a more cost-effective alternative model that can prove far more valuable long-term as well.
The entire article can be seen at Themeparkuniversity.com, it is extremely interesting and definitely worth a read.

Today there are many people that are growing towards a trend of secrecy, and this is definitely the wrong direction for Universal to take if people are going to see this as a privacy issue. But, overall, this could be an extremely efficient program that could really make the theme park a place with fewer lines and more relaxation, we'll just have to wait and see where it goes.

1 comment:

  1. People freaked out over finger prints at first. This wont go over well.

    ReplyDelete

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