Paysafe and Amilia research highlights opportunities to include Parks & Recreation into smart city programs
Over half of Americans (57 percent) would use their local parks and recreational facilities more if an online registration system was offered in their community, according to the first-ever report on residents’ needs for digital access to Parks & Recreation (P&R) services. The new report was jointly published by payments services company Paysafe Group Plc (LON:PAYS) and Amilia, a cutting-edge recreation management software platform.
As smart city strategies gain momentum across North America, to date many initiatives have largely focused on optimizing city operations and infrastructure, with a more limited focus on changing the ways residents experience their local P&R services. Data from this report, however, which was conducted by The Nielsen Company and commissioned by Paysafe and Amilia, reveals that residents are ready for a digital shift in their local P&R departments, with more than half of American respondents (57 percent) likely to book P&R services over the internet if the proposed service was available, and 14 percent stating that the lack of payment options is a barrier of the current P&R registration process.
From online to mobile payments and digital wallets, consumers now expect the same diversity of choice with their local P&R department as they experience when shopping online for other services,” said Carla Erlick, Senior Vice President Business Development and Sales, Paysafe. “By making the shift towards digital accessibility and payments, P&R departments can drive better citizen engagement and increase the usage of their parks and recreational facilities.
In addition to listing the lack of online payments as a top pain point, American respondents revealed a variety of other factors preventing them from accessing and using their local P&R services, including inconvenient registration hours (16 percent), activities that are at capacity too quickly (17 percent) and the lack of registration reminders (17 percent).
As residents’ everyday lives become increasingly digitized, the way cities and municipalities engage with their communities is set to change. The availability of digital access to Parks & Recreation services is clearly important to American residents, 62 percent of whom consider P&R as an important factor when deciding where to live,” explained Alexandre Gauthier, Chief Marketing Officer, Amilia. “By providing an online platform to Parks & Recreation departments, we offer cities a way to better engage their citizens and drive local economic growth.
To download the full report “From Green Space to Digital Place: Factoring Parks & Recreation into smart city strategies in 2018”, click here.