Barcelona, the annual host of Mobile World Congress, is also striving to become one of Europe’s top tourist cities, so the Spanish city recently brought in SAP and Telefónica to better connect travelers to its hottest attractions.
The result is “Barcelona for You” or BCN4U, a mobile application that gives visitors tailored access to major sites, restaurants and entertainment venues in the city. It may look and feel like a simple app, but there’s a lot behind BCN4U. First, consider that BCN4U can not only help you find the best things to do in Barcelona that fit your self-identified interests, but it can also tell you how long the line is at a given attraction – in real time.
“It’s really an intelligent business network,” said Rick Costanzo, EVP and GM of global mobility solutions for SAP.
BCN4U is based on SAP’s City Connect technology and powered by the Hana cloud, which enables it to process information from thousands of people. To work its magic, BCN4U also relies on the “Internet of Things.” For instance, participating merchants and venues in Barcelona use iBeacon systems, which can detect when mobile users with the app are in the vicinity. This gives business owners another way to attract customers.
Say for example, you come to Barcelona on a business trip – maybe the next Mobile World Congress. You can download BCN4U for free, using Telefónica’s network. Then, you input your interests: maybe art, architecture and Spanish wine. The intelligent cloud then matches that information with possible activities or sights to see such as the Fountains of Mont Juic or one of the famous Gaudi architectural sites like La Sagrada Familia or Park Guell. You can accept some of these ideas and plan an agenda.
But here’s where it gets even more interesting: While you’re en route to the Fountains of Mont Juic, for instance, the site suddenly closes for repairs, and BCN4U notifies you so you don’t waste your time. But a restaurant in the area can take that opportunity to send you a special deal on a glass of wine and tapas, which you can enjoy while you wait for the fountains to start up again (which BCN4U will also notify you about).
“It’s all about getting the right proposition to the right person at the right time,” said Costanzo.
What appears like an easy solution to the visitor actually took a great amount of work behind the scenes, not just in terms of technology but in coordination. The project had three main partners: the city of Barcelona, Telefónica as the telecom provider and SAP as the software provider. In addition, the partners had to bring multiple merchants and the organizations that run tourist attractions on board for the system to work.
“We are putting a tremendous amount of focus on how we can improve peoples’ lives in networked society,” Costanzo said. “And Hana and the mobile solutions really go long way toward solving problems and delighting users with the product.”
SAP went live recently with a similar solution in Canada where the software company partnered with Société de Transport de Montréal, the metro system in Montreal, to make its customer reward program smarter. The solution dubbed “STM Merci” provides commuters with geolocated information and offers. Within 48 hours of the soft launch, SAP said that 4,800 commuters had downloaded the app and it was the No. 1 lifestyle app in the AppStore in Canada. Costanzo said the positive feedback was overwhelming.
Time will tell if BCN4U elicits a similar response, but Barcelona is a natural fit for this type of mobile innovation, not only as the host of the Mobile World Congress, but because it’s a mobile city in a country that is fast becoming a mobile leader, as RCR Wireless News reported last week.
The BCN4U was showcased at the last Mobile World Congress in early March, and it’s expected to be available to the general public later this year.
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