CREATION OF ACCESSARENA, A COMPANY OFFERING A NEW CONCEPT OF DESTINATION MANAGEMENT
Cheseaux, Flims/Laax, Rümlang, December 12th 2001
The Kudelski Group, a private investor group and the Weisse Arena Group, have joined forces to create AccessArena AG, designed to provide complete destination management solutions. Based in Rümlang near Zurich and under the management of co-shareholder and CEO Ron Pal, AccessArena aims at creating a global digital platform that will link together providers and operators within a tourism area and allow visitors to access all services using one single smart card.
Transport operators, sport organizations and facilities, hotels and restaurants, shops, rental companies, etc. can join the network that will be managed and operated by the AccessArena digital platform.
Central to the AccessArena solution is the new ArenaCard (a Kudelski Group product incorporating Kaba's LEGIC ® contactless chip), which is compatible with both handsfree systems and contact chip card readers.
Visitors benefit from facilitated access to a whole range of services – from entry into their hotel room to public transportation, from ski pass to purchases at the local shops, etc. The system also includes loyalty programs allowing customers to collect points and benefit from extra services.
The advantages of the AccessArena solution are also significant from the operators' point-of-view : the central, secure collection and storage of data by an independent company allows them to manage their customer database in a more efficient way. Based on pre-defined business processes within a destination, the solution reduces overall costs considerably. Furthermore, operators benefit from the synergies that are generated by the linking together of their services such as increased customer interest thanks to loyalty programs as well as new marketing channels.
AccessArena will initially target tourism sites, in particular ski resorts, in Switzerland, but plans to extend internationally. The AccessArena solution will be tested this coming winter in the Flims Laax Falera resort, home to the Weisse Arena Group. The application will be available on the market in the course of 2002.
The AccessArena destination management concept represents the convergence point of the state-of-the-art technologies, know-how and expertise brought by its founding members and partners.
The investment of the Kudelski Group in AccessArena is in line with the Group's expansion in the physical access sector. However, the AccessArena concept goes one step further as it offers a global digital platform linking together operators from different sectors. This new concept integrates perfectly into the Kudelski Group's strategy to operate a convergence between the various application sectors of its core security technology.
In this perspective, AccessArena is the showcase of Kudelski's convergence concept which has built up in the past months through the acquisition of TicketCorner and SkiData.
As the provider of the physical entry system for the Flims Laax mountain transportation, SkiData is a strategic partner of AccessArena. In the future, TicketCorner's ticketing platform will also form part of the network, thus allowing tourists to book their desired services through TicketCorner's usual channels.
Looking further ahead, the potential availability of AccessArena's applications through digital TV is another example of how technologies may work together to offer value-added services to both the operators and the users.
With its long-lasting experience in electronic access control and ticketing solutions based on its handsfree LEGIC ® chip technology, the Kaba Group is also a strategic partner of AccessArena. Kaba's whole range of LEGIC®- compatible products such as hotel locks, security and automatic doors contribute to the destination management concept offered by AccessArena.
More specifically, Kaba's highly secure contactless chip will be used with ArenaCards.
Contacts
Kudelski Group
Charles Egli,
+41 (0)21 732 03 04
Weisse Arena Group
Reto Gurtner,
+41 (0)81 927 70 07
AccessArena
Ron Pal,
+41 (0)1 818 18 08
The Kudelski Group
The Kudelski Group (www.nagra.com) is a world leader in the area of digital security, focusing on two main sectors: security of access to information (digital TV and broadband Internet) and physical access to sites.
It provides global security solutions to digital TV operators and content providers including conditional access and software tools to operate interactive broadband applications such as e-commerce and video-ondemand.
Kudelski also offers access control solutions for public sites (car parks, stadiums, amusement parks, ski resorts) including a whole range of related products as well as highly secure smart-card based physical access solutionsfor events.
The Kudelski Group (SWX ""KUD"") is part of the Swiss Market Index which includes the top 28 blue chip companies in Switzerland. It is also listed on the Morgan Stanley Capital International Index.
The Weisse Arena Group
The Weisse Arena Group has established itself as a trendsetter in the tourism industry with a wealth of ideas and by carrying out visionary projects. At the same time, the Weisse Arena Group is one of the largest tourism enterprises in the Alps; it is divided into four independent subsidiaries : Weisse Arena Mountain Transportation Corporation, Weisse Arena Gastronomy Corporation, Weisse Arena Leisure Corporation (sport equipment rental service) and Mountain Vision Corporation (management corporation). The Group is based in Flims Laax Falera, Switzerland and made a net revenue of 61.9 millionSwiss francs in the 00/01 financial year; it takes on 659 employees in winter and 255 employees in summer. Per year the Weisse Arena Group can count on approximately one million visitors as clients.
AccessArena AG, Hofwisenstrasse 24, 8153 Rümlang, Switzerland