Spontaneous travel with the camper should be possible again

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This is what we set out to do a year ago. Today, the solution is mature and ready for the market. In collaboration with the Touring Club Switzerland, we have launched the first parking app for campers in Switzerland. Motorhome travelers can use it to check in and out of an official parking space digitally without a reservation. The innovative solution simplifies the work for parking space operators and automates the tourist tax to the municipalities.

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Discovering the world in a campervan or motorhome is a trend - and not just since the coronavirus pandemic. The situation has worsened over the past year. Although motorhome tourism is the fastest-growing market in the European travel industry, accommodation offers are only being expanded hesitantly. While hotels, vacation apartments and campsites have clear structures and booking processes, motorhome tourism on pitches is still too little organized.

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Response to prohibition signs

Today, many campers want to travel spontaneously and discover the beauty of a region up close, which has increased the demand for simple camper pitches. Due to a lack of facilities, campers are increasingly spending the night in the wild or semi-legally, which is understandably causing resentment among authorities and municipalities. As a result, camping bans have been imposed in many places. We see the tense situation in motorhome tourism as an opportunity to bring together pitch operators, campers and local authorities with Parkn'Sleep.

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Manage parking spaces digitally

Parkn'Sleep is the first parking app for campers in Switzerland. The app displays official parking spaces with live availability. Each pitch is legal, verified and linked to local regulations and tariffs. Providers can enter their parking space offers in the system with just a few clicks and thus generate income. Campers can drive to the pitches spontaneously, check in and out digitally on site and spend a quiet and undisturbed night. Parkn'Sleep is therefore not just another parking space directory, but a simple solution for digital parking space management. On the one hand to accommodate the spontaneity of campers, on the other hand to save providers the booking effort.

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Parking solution for municipalities

For the first time, Parkn'Sleep gives municipalities the opportunity to offer a parking solution for campers in order to cater to this growing group of travelers. With the Parkn'Sleep solution, municipalities now also benefit from the overnight visitor's tax for pitches, regardless of whether the pitch is operated by private providers or the municipality itself. The visitor's tax is paid directly to the relevant municipality based on the zip code of the respective parking space. Parkn'Sleep functions as an automatic check-in and payment system without reservation effort and was developed in such a way that it can be integrated into existing secondary systems (parking meters, reservation systems, experience camping platforms, etc.). Parkn'Sleep can be used to regulate the motorhome situation in municipalities, increase the attractiveness of destinations and bring additional added value to tourist regions.

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Our partners are the Touring Club Switzerland and the University of Applied Sciences Graubünden

For the launch, we can count on the support of the Touring Club Switzerland, the largest operator of campsites in Switzerland. For Oliver Grützner, Head of Tourism & Leisure at TCS, Parkn'Sleep is a missing piece of the puzzle in the Swiss camping market: "Camping has many facets and characteristics. As the largest mobility club in Switzerland, we support Parkn'Sleep in order to promote organized camping in Switzerland outside of campsites". The Graubünden University of Applied Sciences is supporting Parkn'Sleep as a scientific project partner. It is contributing its expertise in the areas of user experience and tourism development. For example, data collection on pitch usage will be used to further develop the offer for specific target groups and incorporated into tourism planning. The needs of providers and users of the parking app will also be surveyed and the question of the extent to which a digital product can facilitate the billing of parking spaces and thus increase income from tourism taxes will be clarified.

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We are very much looking forward to the coming months and are excited to see how the market will react to this solution.

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