Using Rewards and Technology to Disperse Visitors

A scenic landscape photo of Colorado National Monument, featuring towering red rock formations framed by a juniper tree in the foreground.

Using Rewards and Technology to Disperse Visitors

Effectively telling your sustainability story can be challenging. Sharing your progress, encouraging responsible travel behaviors, and avoiding accusations of greenwashing are difficult things to do. Fortunately, there are great resources available to help guide you through this communication minefield.

Managing the flow of visitors to avoid overcrowding while ensuring a smooth visitor experience is an ongoing challenge for destinations. By combining real-time monitoring technology and rewards-based incentives, destinations can encourage travelers to explore lesser-known areas, ultimately reducing congestion at popular sites.

Providing real-time information on the current conditions of popular and less-frequented sites is an effective strategy to disperse crowds. Visit Oregon uses a network of webcams to offer live feeds of attractions, allowing visitors to see if there is a crowd and make informed decisions before heading out. The webcams are sourced from other websites through partnerships with businesses. This strategy enables Oregon to showcase its less-visited state parks as an alternative attraction for visitors to consider, providing more control over foot traffic. Destinations can embed these webcams into their websites or apps to give visitors a real-time peak at the congested places. Displaying real-time data on visitor density can help inform future strategy and decision-making.

Reward-based check-in system incentivize visitors to explore less crowded destinations is another innovative technological approach. Colorado has embraced this approach by offering visitors free desserts or discounts for checking in at lesser-known outdoor attractions through their Outdoor Adventure Pass that uses GPS data to allow visitors to check-in at a participating location. By partnering with local businesses and attractions, destinations can create a win-win scenario: tourists receive rewards for visiting lesser-known places, and local businesses gain more foot traffic. With the incentivized experience, visitors are encouraged to explore new areas, balancing out the visitor distribution across the region.

By leveraging technology, DMOs can nudge visitors away from overcrowded areas and create a more balanced, responsible travel experience. Following in the footsteps of Oregon’s live monitoring tools and Colorado’s rewards-based check-in systems, other destinations can ensure that visitors enjoy all that it has to offer.

Ailin Fei
afei@purdue.edu