The Eden Project in Cornwall, UK, will become even greener as it launches the first-ever paperless ticketing system that uses mobile phones from start to finish.  Through an innovative three-way partnership between The Eden Project, Swiftpass and LUUP, visitors to the world-famous global garden will be able to order, purchase and redeem their tickets using their mobile phone.  This is a milestone for the advancement of mobile ticketing, which until now included a step involving a customer service representative for payment and most of the time a print-out.

Opened in 2001, The Eden Project is home to the world’s biggest greenhouses and has hosted more than eight million visitors to date.  Its dedication to educating audiences about the importance of plants and the environmental future makes it the ideal location to provide visitors with a greener way to gain entrance.  Now anyone with a mobile phone will be able to buy the type of ticket they want and walk straight past the queues by simply texting 80988. This will initiate an instant payment from their LUUP account and a barcode ticket will be sent direct to their mobile phone. The barcode is then presented to and read by scanners at the entrance, allowing the ticketholder to walk straight in. For more information about how to get tickets sent direct to mobile phones people should text ‘Eden info’ to 80988.

Mobile phone ticketing has been available at Eden since last summer but until now, users have had to call the box office and pay over the phone in order to get their ticket sent to their mobile. Now, with the new partnership between Swiftpass and mobile payment specialist LUUP the process will be quicker, easier and require no involvement from The Eden Project staff.

LUUP is a mobile payment system enabling consumers to send and receive payments on their mobile phones or online.  Payments can be made from credit/debit cards, bank accounts and the digital cash in account holder’s ‘LUUP Wallet.’  For those who do not have a LUUP account, the process for registering takes less than 2 minutes.  When a non-account holder texts the short code to purchase a ticket to The Eden Project they will be contacted immediately by the LUUP call centre to register.  For further LUUP payments, the registered user will simply need to send a text message to pay for their ticket.

Jeff Berry, Managing Director at Swiftpass, welcomed the development as “an exciting step forward in ticketing technology”.

He said: “This is the first large scale implementation of mobile ticketing that incorporates payment and fulfilment through the handset in a very simple way.

“We have known there has been a missing link for some time, but that gap has now been filled thanks to the partnership with LUUP.”

The Swiftpass system is designed to be secure, with each ticket capable of being locked to the handset that receives it.  And not only is the technology safe and fast, it is also environmentally-friendly because it cuts down on the wastage associated with paper tickets. As an environmental charity, that is a particular concern for the Eden Project and its visitors.

Jon Curry, Eden’s Head of ICT, said: “This development builds on the good work on ticket fulfilment we did last summer with Swiftpass. Now using the LUUP payment system for the first time we are able to offer our customers, including those who are on holiday and probably have no access to our ticket website, a fully automated, paperless advanced ticketing system using nothing but their mobile phone.”

“As environmental issues continue to shift the public’s focus to living a less wasteful lifestyle, LUUP is proud to be part of this innovative partnership with The Eden Project and Swiftpass to make mobile ticketing easy, convenient and for the first-time truly mobile from start to finish,” said Christopher Lovold, UK Director for LUUP.
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