The Case
Karls Erlebnis-Dörfer began as a modest farmer’s market at a single strawberry farm in Rövershagen, North-East Germany. While the original Rövershagen location now draws approximately 1.7 million annual visitors annually and features numerous attractions, including rollercoasters, carousels, a permanent ice sculpture festival, and more, the strawberry remains the core of everything experienced at Karls.
Since the success of the first park, Karls has rapidly expanded to several additional locations across Germany, with new sites opening soon. This rapid expansion raised a critical question for the client: With central control overseeing multiple distinct locations, was the quality of the park experience at different locations still consistently meeting the high standards expected by the owner?
The Approach
Our distinctive tool for approaching the operations optimization at Karls Erlebnis-Dörfer is SNAP!. This tool developed by TDAC provides within a short time frame great professional insights on status of the park and its operations.
Our work began with a focus on truly understanding the principles, vision, and operational ethos of the company. First, we conducted a comprehensive two-day immersion visit.
- Day 1: We held several intensive brainstorm meetings with the core team at the Rövershagen location. This session was designed to collaboratively connect with the essence of the Karls brand experience.
- Day 2: Following an overnight stay at their hotel, we toured the second location in Elstal (near Berlin) alongside the top management. This provided us with perfect insight into their current operational thoughts, expectations, and future plans.
For our second visit, we conducted a two-day Mystery Guest Audit across both locations.
- Acting as normal, unannounced guests, we thoroughly tested the Karls concept on both Design and Operational execution. This was carried out using our extensive SNAP! 100+ point checklist.
- Beyond simply experiencing the parks as typical visitors to feel how guests are treated, we applied our deep professional experience to evaluate every detail.
During our final visit we delivered our final report. This didn’t just identify areas for improvement; we also provided concrete, actionable advice during the presentation of our findings for operations optimization at Karls Erlebnis-Dörfer.
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