Instantly Updated Opening Hours on E-Paper Displays for a European Holiday Park

At a large holiday park, opening hours are never fixed for long. The pool opens earlier in summer, a restaurant stays open later on weekends, and an activity desk shifts its schedule for the school holidays. Every one of those changes has to reach guests at the right spot and the right moment. For years, that meant printing a fresh paper sign each time something moved. Center Parcs found a faster way. Working with its signage partner MSI Sign Group, the resort replaced printed schedules with e-paper displays, and with Castit software behind them, staff now update opening hours from a web browser and the new times appear on the display within seconds.

This case study looks at how 13 e-paper displays removed the cost and delay of printed signs, and what that means for any venue that has to manage shifting schedules across many departments.

About the Client

Center Parcs operates holiday parks across the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, and Denmark. Each park sits in a natural setting and brings together accommodation, an Aqua Mundo subtropical swimming pool, restaurants, shops, sports facilities, and activities for families. A single park can host thousands of guests at the same time, and nearly every facility keeps its own opening hours.

This project was delivered through MSI Sign Group, a signage company based in the Netherlands that handles the full process, from advice and design to production, installation, and maintenance. MSI Sign Group chose Castit as the software partner behind the e-paper displays. Castit provided the technology that drives and updates the content, while MSI Sign Group managed the physical signage on site.

The Challenges

A holiday park is not one business. It is many small operations under one roof, and each one runs on its own clock. The pool, the restaurants, the shop, the bowling alley, the farm, and the activity points all open and close at different times, and those times move with the season, the weather, staffing, and special events.

Before the switch, every change was handled by hand. Staff printed a new sign, carried it to the right place, and swapped out the old one, and a small adjustment like moving a closing time by half an hour set off the same routine every time. Across a full park with dozens of facilities, that added up:

• A steady stream of printing, laminating, and replacing signs.
• Time and money spent on both materials and labor.
• Room for mistakes whenever an old sign stayed up longer than it should have.

When a sign fell out of date, the cost landed on guests, who sometimes trusted the posted hours and arrived at a door that was already closed.

The Castit Solution

Center Parcs replaced the printed schedules with 13 e-paper displays. An e-paper display, also called an e ink display, uses the same low-power screen technology you find in e-readers, which makes it a practical choice for opening-hours signage across a large indoor and outdoor site:

• The text stays sharp and easy to read in bright daylight.
• The screen only draws power when the content changes.
• The displays run for a long time without heavy wiring or frequent charging.

What ties the displays together is the Castit software running behind them. It gives staff one place to manage the content on every screen and update the opening hours as often as they need. When hours change, the process is short:

• A team member opens the software in a browser.
• They edit the schedule and publish it.
• The change reaches the right e-paper display and appears almost immediately.

Nobody has to print anything, walk anywhere, or touch the device. Because the software is cloud-based, hours can be updated from an office or any location with an internet connection, not only from the spot where the screen hangs. The e-paper displays handle visibility on site, the Castit software handles the content, and together they turn a manual task into a few clicks.

The Results and Impact

With e-paper displays and Castit software in place, a daily chore became a quick action. The change Center Parcs set out to make showed up in a few clear ways:

Instant Updates

Lower Costs

Accurate Hours

Less Paper Waste

• Faster updates. Changes that once needed a printed sign and a walk across the park now take a few seconds in a browser.
• Lower costs. The same e-paper display can show new hours as often as needed, with no spending on printing, laminating, or replacing signs.
• Better accuracy. The times on screen always match the schedule staff set in the software, instead of whatever sign happened to be posted.
• A smoother guest experience. Correct information means fewer wasted trips to a closed facility and fewer questions at the desk.
• Less waste. Cutting printed signs reduces paper use, which fits a resort built around its natural surroundings.

Just as important, the software is easy to run. Staff did not need technical training to manage it, because updating a schedule works like editing a simple page. That keeps day-to-day control in the hands of the people who know the hours best, without involving IT for every small change.

Bring E-Paper Displays to Your Site

E-paper displays are a strong fit anywhere opening hours, schedules, or prices change often and need to stay readable all day. They draw very little power, hold a sharp image in bright light, and run with minimal wiring, which makes them practical across large indoor and outdoor spaces.

What turns those displays into a working system is the software behind them. Castit gives you one place to manage the content on every e-paper screen and update it in seconds, from any location with an internet connection.

If you want to move opening hours or other changing information onto e-paper, get in touch with the Castit team. We will look at your setup, show you how the software manages the displays, and help you plan the right solution for your site. 

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