Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine visitor management in the German-Swiss border area of the Lake Constance region. Taking a customer perspective, it determines the requirements for an application with the ability to optimize personal mobility. Design/methodology/approach A quantitative study and a survey of focus groups were conducted to identify movement patterns of different types of visitors and their requirements concerning the development of a visitor management application. Findings Visitors want an application that provides real-time forecasts of issues such as traffic, parking and queues and, at the same time, enables them to create a personal activity schedule based on this information. Research limitations/implications Not every subsample reached a sufficient number of cases to yield representative results. Practical implications The results may lead to an optimization and management separation of mobility flows in the research area and be helpful to municipal planners, destination marketing organizations and visitors. Originality/value The German border cities of Konstanz, Radolfzell and Singen in the Lake Constance region need improved visitor management, mainly because of a high level of shopping tourism by Swiss visitors to Germany. In the Summer months, Lake Constance is also a popular destination for leisure tourists, which causes overtourism. For the first time, the results of this research presented here offer possible solutions, in particular by showing how a mobile application for visitors could defuse the situation.

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