The top Luxembourg app for parents is about to launch in Vienna. Spillplaz co-founders Patrick Glaesener and Daniel Damasio explain.
Like all the best innovations, Spillplaz.lu (playground) was born out of necessity.
“I’m from Pétange and whenever we visited our grandmother, we’d be stuck in traffic jams. It’s better to spend that time in a playground and wait until the jam is over, but we didn’t know where they were,” says Glaesener, a mechanic and father.
That was in 2015. Glaesener discussed the problem with Daniel Damasio, an events manager. Within no time, they hired a programmer to build a website, followed by the Spillplaz app, which launched in April 2018.
“Today, we have over 1,600 playgrounds just in Luxembourg. Not all are open to visit,” says Damasio, explaining that some are closed for maintenance. The free app includes photos and location details for public and private play areas and has filter features to help parents and childcare providers find playgrounds that are indoors, have water features, toilets or dining facilities nearby, among other things. “If the closest restaurant is a partner, you can also book a table directly from the app. And the navigation also includes Waze and Google [editor’s note: navigation tools],” says Glaesener.
Content is regularly updated and the app also hosts information about events being organised at each site. Not convinced it’s worth the drive to get to a playground? Depending on the site, visitors may be able to take a virtual tour before leaving home thanks to a handful of 360° walk-through media, supported by various partnerships.
The app proved a big hit when playgrounds reopened during the pandemic and its appeal continues to garner a following, from both residents and tourists. “From January to August 2022, we had about 300,000 people use the app,” says Damasio.
In Spring 2023, the team plans to launch a Spillplaz app in Vienna, Austria. “Vienna is not bigger than Luxembourg, but there are four times more people in Vienna than here,” says Damasio.
While the app remains free to use in Luxembourg, the Vienna version will offer premium services. Spillplaz has won a number of prizes, including the 2018 Tourism Innovation Award and the 2020 RTL Success Story prize. The two are hoping that after the launch in Vienna, they will expand to other major cities, enabling them to quit their day jobs and work on Spillplaz full-time.
