Delaware North’s Parks and Resorts division has been focusing on improving guest experience by implementing technology solutions to create more efficient and seamless transactions that allow guests to spend more time exploring. The division operates in some of the most iconic locations in the country, including Yosemite, Yellowstone and Grand Canyon national parks, Niagara Falls State Park in New York and at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex on Florida’s Space Coast.
A total of 85 retail kiosks and 59 food & beverage kiosks have been installed across many Delaware North locations, using systems from technology partners Mashgin, XPR and Tapin2. The company says it has installed 34 retail kiosks across nine of the Yellowstone General Stores that it operates in the national park and 17 at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
“The kiosks have allowed for shorter queue times and more efficient transactions, which is especially important as the parks team prepares for their busiest time of the year,” says Jim Zilliox, senior director of technology for Delaware North Parks and Resorts.
Other locations that have added either retail and/or food & beverage kiosks include The Gideon Putnam in New York; Grand Canyon; Kalaloch Lodge in Olympic National Park; Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in California; Niagara Falls State Park; Nova Guides in Colorado; The Ridgeline Hotel at Yellowstone in Montana; Shenandoah National Park in Virginia; The Squire at Grand Canyon in Arizona; Tenaya at Yosemite in California; and The Westin Buffalo.
Donna Genesky, vice president of retail for parks and resorts at Delaware North, says the new self-checkout kiosks aren’t cutting down on labor, rather they are helping to improve throughput at the stores to improve guest experience. Since the new kiosks are small, she adds that the company was even able to expand POS count at some locations.
“We can replace one traditional POS with three self-checkout kiosks,” says Genesky.
She adds, “If you look at our total POS count, 40% of those are now self-checkout kiosks. Again, I want to make this point, it’s not as if we took out 40% of our traditional checkouts and put in self-checkout kiosks. There’s some where we took out one traditional checkout and put in four self-checkout kiosks because we could fit more of those in the space, or in some locations we just added self-checkout kiosks rather than removing any traditional checkouts.”
Since adding the self-checkout kiosks, Genesky says about 25% of all sales have been going through the new kiosks rather than traditional checkout.
“That’s good adoption this early in the game,” she says.
Zilliox says he expects utilization of the self-checkout kiosks to only increase over time.
“Over time, we’ve already seen utilization increasing. For some stores, 70-80% of all transactions are on self-checkout kiosks, even with a traditional POS in the store. So feedback has been positive,” he says. “To help with store throughput challenges, these are helpful. Think about it — no one travels to Yellowstone to stand in a long line at a gift shop! The idea with these is to offer a frictionless guest experience.”
