Every Step Tells a Story

For decades, success in public attractions — from zoos and botanic gardens to museums and parks — has been measured by footfall. The thinking has been straightforward: if people are showing up, the experience must be working.

But in a landscape increasingly shaped by personalisation, technology, and rising visitor expectations, the traditional metric is beginning to show its age.

It turns out that knowing how many people walk through the gate is very different from understanding what they actually do once they’re inside.

The Experience Gap

Most organisations have some sense of their visitor journey. Popular exhibits draw predictable crowds. Events lift numbers. Peaks and troughs follow familiar patterns.

But what remains largely invisible is the detail:

Where do visitors dwell? What do they overlook?

Do families feel guided or lost? Are people staying longer — or cutting visits short because of friction?

This is the experience gap. And it’s one many institutions are now moving to close.

From Footfall to Footsteps

A growing number of operators are shifting their focus — from counting footfall to mapping footsteps.

It’s a subtle but powerful change. Where footfall is quantitative, footsteps are qualitative. They reflect decision-making, curiosity, surprise, fatigue, and delight. They tell you, in real-time, how people are interacting with your space — and whether the design is helping or hindering that experience.

These insights are proving invaluable, especially for institutions looking to evolve without expanding — to do more with the spaces they already have.

Case Study: Northumberland Zoo’s Digital Pivot

One such example is Northumberland Zoo, a family-run zoo in Northeast England. Faced with the challenge of increasing engagement across a diverse site — while advancing educational goals and sustainability efforts — the zoo turned to digital innovation.

Working with a mobile-first engagement platform, they introduced interactive digital maps powered by real-time data and location-aware technology.

The result was a fundamental shift in how the zoo understood — and influenced — visitor behaviour.

Visitors could navigate more intuitively, guided by live information on exhibits, feeding times, and events. Underutilised areas became more visible. Dwell times improved. And digital storytelling deepened educational impact, particularly for school groups.

The platform also delivered operational benefits, from smarter staff deployment to reductions in printed collateral — aligning with the zoo’s environmental commitments.

Designing for Discovery

Northumberland Zoo is not alone. Across the globe, organisations are rethinking how they design, measure, and manage the visitor journey. In the age of the smartphone, static signage and paper maps are no longer enough.

The new benchmark is interaction — one-to-one, real-time, and dynamic.

When visitors feel personally guided — when they encounter unexpected moments of joy, learning, or surprise — their perception of value shifts. They stay longer. Engage deeper. And often, they return.

For venues navigating rising costs, shifting audience needs, and the pressure to differentiate, that kind of engagement is not just a nice-to-have. It’s essential.

The Quiet Revolution in Visitor Experience

This is not about chasing trends or digitising for the sake of it. It’s about using thoughtful technology to enhance what makes these spaces special — the physical, the emotional, the real.

Whether it’s a family finding their way to a lesser-known exhibit, a student unlocking a digital trail, or a visitor making a spontaneous connection with a conservation story, the most meaningful journeys are often the ones that aren’t scripted.

The challenge is creating the conditions for those journeys to happen more often.

For organisations ready to go beyond footfall and design spaces around footsteps — there are now tools that can make that possible.

See how interactive, immersive, one-on-one visitor journeys can turn your space into a high-engagement destination. Explore what’s possible with Maps byDisrupt.

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