Open Access

Tatjana Thimm, Marcel Hüttermann, Frank Hannich, Christine Bild

• Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine visitor management in the German-Swiss border area of the Lake Constance region. Taking a customer perspective, it determines the requirements for an application with the ability to optimize personal mobility. Design/methodology/approach – A quantitative study and a survey of focus groups were conducted to identify movement patterns of different types of visitors and their requirements concerning the development of a visitor management application. Findings – Visitors want an application that provides real-time forecasts of issues such as traffic, parking and queues and, at the same time, enables them to create a personal activity schedule based on this information. Research limitations/implications – Not every subsample reached a sufficient number of cases to yield representative results. Practical implications – The results may lead to an optimization and management separation of mobility flows in the research area and be helpful to municipal planners, destination marketing organizations and visitors. Originality/value – The German border cities of Konstanz, Radolfzell and Singen in the Lake Constance region need improved visitor management, mainly because of a high level of shopping tourism by Swiss visitors to Germany. In the Summer months, Lake Constance is also a popular destination for leisure tourists, which causes overtourism. For the first time, the results of this research presented here offer possible solutions, in particular by showing how a mobile application for visitors could defuse the situation.