AT: Tim Baldwin
AUSTELL, Georgia — Even before the global health crisis put contactless transactions at the forefront of doing business, Six Flags Theme Parks were already investigating a new initiative to change how payments could be handled.
Six Flags Over Georgia began discussions in the second quarter of 2019.
“We had those conversations here in Atlanta, which led to us doing a pilot in just a small section of the park during Holiday in the Park in 2019,” said Jeff Harris, senior director of finance, Six Flags. “We wanted to test it really small and see what our guests thought about it and see how our team members felt. As a management team, we wanted to see how we felt about the results and see if it would be something we’d like to explore down the road.”
With positive feedback from all involved, management had the confidence to do a bigger test. When White Water opened in late June, the Georgia team expanded the program to make the entire park’s transactions contactless.
“The real emphasis for this is to improve the guest experience,” said Harris. “The industry knows that credit transactions are easier to process than cash transactions — anywhere from five to 15 seconds faster. Multiply that out by thousands of guests and you can see the improvement of line speed, especially in food service where we wanted to speed the lines up.”
For the guest, the initiative is termed Card and Mobile Payment Program. Those guests carrying only cash can use machines placed in the park to convert bills into prepaid debit cards. Following the park visit, any balance can be spent anywhere that accepts Visa.
“Communication and awareness are key,” said Gene Patrick, director of marketing, Six Flags Over Georgia. “We have learned that through our trials. We communicate the Card and Mobile Payment Program through our website, our e-newsletters and significant in-park signage. We really want to communicate that this program is for the benefit of our guests.”
Six Flags is creating messages for its in-park radio and queue line television segments. It’s important for guests to understand there are no fees to transfer money to the card nor to use it.
“It’s a much safer and faster method of payment, and what a better time to introduce it than in the era of COVID,” noted Harris. “The acceptance rate if very positive. Naturally, folks are gravitating toward non-cash purchases in the environment.”
Further advantages involve eliminating counting errors or any temptation for staff theft.
“The chance of that happening now is zero. Also, the training time is significantly reduced,” added Harris.
“There is a lot that goes into paying for cash processing. All of those costs are now removed,” Harris told Amusement Today. “The net of it is a positive financial impact. Those outweigh the rental costs of the units and credit card fees.”
A service agreement with the machine providers takes care of installation, training, maintenance, loading of cards and handling the cash pull.
“It’s completely hands off,” said Harris. “All we have to do is provide a place and the guests. We’ve completely removed armored cars, cash processing and reconciliation. That all goes away and has completely funded the program.”
This article appears in the
NOVEMBER 2020 Pre-IAAPA issue
of Amusement Today.
View the entire issue for FREE with our digital edition!
