'Virtual queuing' keeps park visitors safe
A tourist experiences a "virtual queue" machine at Shanghai Happy Valley.
Tourist venues in Shanghai have taken an intelligent approach to improving visitor experience.
After registering on WeChat, Li Xiaolin examined a list of dozens of tourist attractions across the city. She picked Luxun Museum in Hongkou District and checked the date she wanted to pay a visit.
"There are 483 vacancies left for Friday!" said Li, who made a reservation. The whole process took less than 1 minute.
Li used Hu You Ma which allows people to make a reservation while ensuring non-contact entry and preventing gathering.
More than 100 sites across the city have been or will soon be covered by the code, Shanghai Culture and Tourism Administration said. It can be accessed by WeChat, Alipay and the "Visit Shanghai" app, or at the entrances of some venues. More than 100,000 people have used the code to make reservations.
Offline, some tourist attractions are also adopting technology-based methods to ensure a safer visit.
Shanghai Happy Valley in Songjiang District has placed 16 "virtual queuing" machines at two popular roller coasters. Via four procedures like face recognition and QR code scanning, visitors will finish queuing within two minutes.
They can enjoy other amusements first and return to the roller coasters based on the estimated queuing time they receive on their mobile phones.
"Virtual queue" will continue after the epidemic, said Wang Xin, a park employee.
Shanghai Haichang Ocean Park in the Pudong New Area has introduced the same system.
