Droplabs Dynamic Pricing as a tool for shaping tourist behavior
This post is the third part of a larger article: AI in the service of heritage: Droplabs Dynamic Pricing and attendance prediction in shaping sustainable tourist behavior in Tatra National Park. Part 2 explores the technology behind the AI solutions used at TPN, and Part 4 explains how professional data monitoring can help an organization achieve its goals.
Challenge and solution
Accurate attendance forecasting, described in part one, is one thing. TPN's key goal, however, was to influence tourist behavior. Without advance parking reservations at the start of the trail to Morskie Oko, drivers with no guaranteed space caused serious congestion on the access road. This blocked access for disciplined visitors who had bought a ticket in advance and had a guaranteed space. Worse, idling traffic jams mean excessive exhaust emissions, which harm the priceless Tatra ecosystem. Encouraging online reservations therefore became a key tool, both logistically and environmentally.
The Park's managers opted for an online sales system with automatic Droplabs Dynamic Pricing. Droplabs, a Polish company, was the first in Poland to offer a dynamic pricing system for tourist attractions based on machine learning (AI).
Instead of a single fixed parking price, the year is divided into several seasons. Each season has fixed price ranges: a minimum price available online or offline at the Tourist Information Center, and a price at the parking ticket office.
Minimum parking prices start at PLN 36 for a full day. However, this price rises to PLN 65 if you buy a ticket on site without a prior reservation. In high season, the lowest advance price is PLN 55, while buying on site without a reservation costs PLN 85. Interestingly, hardly anyone actually pays the maximum price! The online share is as high as 80-90% of total attendance.
Droplabs algorithms actively raise this price without reducing interest in the offer, while motivating drivers to buy online earlier, which is crucial for traffic management and reducing congestion.
An analysis of ticket purchases during the 2025 summer holidays (July-August) clearly shows the success of Tatra National Park's sales strategy. The vast majority of tourists, 83% of customers, buy their ticket before arriving (blue and navy in the chart below). Fewer than one in five tourists (red zone in the chart below) buy a ticket after arriving at the parking lot. As a result, the system minimizes unplanned traffic, congestion, and exhaust emissions.
Interestingly, more than 90% of tourists bought their parking ticket online: those who bought before arriving (83%) plus those who bought online on site (8%).
Data for the whole year clearly confirms the fundamental change in tourist behavior achieved by the TPN team. Over the year, as many as three-quarters of customers (74%) buy their parking ticket before arriving (blue and navy in the chart below), which shows strong planning discipline, also outside the high season. Unplanned traffic, represented by only one in four tourists who buy a ticket on site (red zone in the chart below), has been reduced to a minimum. The result is less spontaneous traffic, congestion, and exhaust emissions all year round.
Over the year, the online share is as high as 81%.
A financial side effect
Revenue from entrance tickets is needed to fund nature conservation, trail restoration, monitoring of flora and fauna, safety (in cooperation with TOPR, the Tatra Volunteer Rescue Service), maintenance and development of tourist infrastructure, and visitor education. At the same time, ticket revenue and subsidies are often insufficient to meet the Park's statutory goals.
Parking fees are an opportunity to raise additional funds. Driving to the trailhead is a convenient, though not the only, way to reach popular destinations. Alternatively, Palenica Białczańska can be reached by frequent buses from Zakopane, costing about PLN 15 per person.
Interestingly, a side effect of introducing Droplabs Dynamic Pricing is that the Park can fund much more of its statutory activity while serving the same number of tourists. Over 12 months, this amounts to around PLN 2 million in revenue from surpluses above minimum prices, generated by the online channel alone.
The Dynamic Pricing system thus allows Tatra National Park to offer parking prices below competitors' rates while contributing more to the budget for the Park's statutory activities than static prices would.
Importantly, TPN has adopted a very customer-friendly refund policy. To promote early purchases and give tourists peace of mind when planning, the Park allows free ticket returns until 12:00 p.m. on the day before the visit date. So if plans need to change, for example because the weather forecast turns out to be dangerous or too demanding for the planned route, the customer gets a full refund and can choose a new date stress-free.
Despite such flexible terms, the annual refund rate among online buyers is only about 2%. There is also a group of customers who do not show up at the parking lot despite having paid and do not request a refund, which is an additional, unplanned source of revenue for the Park's budget.
Usability of the online sales system
With the online channel dominant, the effectiveness of online sales is crucial for Tatra National Park as the largest ticketed attraction in Poland. It depends on several factors: the stability and reliability of the Droplabs sales platform at peak times, an easy purchase process, efficient payment processing and management of the available pool of spaces, and fast delivery of tickets in a convenient format.
A fundamental indicator is the usability of the online store: at TPN, the purchase conversion rate (from viewing the ticket page to completing payment) is as high as 33%. High conversion ensures that communication and marketing efforts are not wasted, because tourists who reach the store actually complete their purchase instead of giving up along the way.
TPN achieves high conversion thanks to the continuous development of the Droplabs online sales system. A key tool in this process is ongoing A/B testing. These tests check whether changes actually make it easier for customers to complete a purchase. Changes that improve the process are implemented, while those that complicate it are rejected. Equally important is compliance with WCAG 2.2, which ensures that the store and online tickets are accessible and usable for tourists with various disabilities, including cognitive or motor impairments.
The Droplabs store interface is continuously developed with this group in mind, making it easy to complete a purchase using a screen reader or without a mouse. Attention to detail extends to the ticket itself, which is designed to be read automatically by assistive tools for people with visual impairments.
Summary
By implementing a dynamic pricing system based on Droplabs AI, Tatra National Park (TPN) has effectively changed tourist behavior, motivating the vast majority (more than 70% over the year) to buy parking tickets in advance. This minimized traffic congestion and reduced the negative impact of exhaust emissions on the Tatra ecosystem. Alongside an advanced sales strategy, the key to this success is the very high usability of the online sales platform, continuously optimized through A/B testing. While making purchases easy and accessible, the system also generates around PLN 2 million a year in additional revenue for the Park's statutory goals, while maintaining a customer-friendly refund policy.
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Results in numbers
July-August 2025 (summer holidays)
- 91% of tourists bought their parking ticket online.
- 83% bought their parking ticket before arriving (at least 15 minutes before entry was registered at the barrier or by parking staff).
- 80% bought their parking ticket at least one day before their trip.
- 22% bought their parking ticket at least four days in advance!
- Scale: about 60,000 cars with parking tickets over the two summer months.
- 27% of tourists bought their Park entrance ticket online.
Twelve full months: October 2024 - September 2025
- 81% of tourists bought their parking ticket online.
- 74% bought their parking ticket before arriving (at least 15 minutes before entry was registered at the barrier or by parking staff).
- 65% bought their parking ticket at least one day before their trip.
- 15% bought their parking ticket at least four days in advance.
- Additional revenue from price surpluses above minimum prices, generated by the Droplabs Dynamic Pricing strategy in the online channel for TPN parking: PLN 2 million.
- Refunds: 1.9% of online parking ticket purchases.
- Date changes: 0.1% of online parking ticket purchases.
- Scale: about 200,000 cars with parking tickets per year.
- 25% of tourists bought their Park entrance ticket online.
Additionally, over six months (mid-April to mid-October 2025):
- Almost 100,000 marketing consents, giving a potential communication reach of up to 335,000 tourists.
This post is the third part of a larger article: AI in the service of heritage: Droplabs Dynamic Pricing and attendance prediction in shaping sustainable tourist behavior in Tatra National Park. Part 2 explores the technology behind the AI solutions used at TPN, and Part 4 explains how professional data monitoring can help an organization achieve its goals.
