The platform running a municipality's own app
Content, coupons and push notifications for Smart Lopar, managed entirely by municipal staff
2023
Single delivery
Public Sector / Tourism
Starting position
Starting position
- None
Digital catalog of local locations & businesses
Information scattered across paper materials, social media and word of mouth
- None
Way to distribute local discounts digitally
Promotions relied on paper vouchers and in-person offers
- None
Direct communication channel to residents & visitors
No push-notification or app-based channel existed
- Manual, unverifiable
Coupon redemption verification
No way to confirm or track actual usage
Market size
≈ 1,000+ residents, multiplied several times over by seasonal tourism
Residents and seasonal visitors reachable through the app
Approx. budget
10,000 – 49,999 €
Budget breakdown
Budget bucket per Clutch.co project cost category. Exact figures under NDA.
4-phase delivery
Single delivery
- 1
Phase 1
Discovery + content model (locations, categories, coupons)
- 2
Phase 2
Admin platform build (management console)
- 3
Phase 3
Coupon redemption + push notification integration
- 4
Phase 4
Launch, staff training and handover
A tourist destination with no digital channel to its own community
Lopar is a small municipality on the island of Rab that welcomes far more visitors each summer than it has residents. Local points of interest, business promotions and municipal announcements had no shared digital home - everything lived on paper, in social-media posts, or in someone's head.
No unified catalog of local locations, services and attractions
Local business discounts distributed on paper, with no usage tracking
No direct channel to reach residents and visitors with announcements
Small municipal team, no in-house technical capacity to run a platform
One admin platform behind the Smart Lopar app
We built the content and operations backbone for the municipality's own mobile app: a management console where municipal staff maintain locations, categories and business coupons, track redemptions, and send push notifications - all without touching a line of code.
Category-first discovery for visitors
The app's home screen organises the whole island into categories - events, trips, beaches, heritage, dining, sport, entertainment - with search and a live events feed.
Location & category management
Staff maintain the catalog of points of interest and organise them into categories for the public-facing app.
Coupon platform with redemption tracking
Local business discounts are issued as coupons and verified through scan-based redemption, with per-coupon statistics.
Push notifications
Announcements reach app users instantly through Firebase Cloud Messaging - no separate channel required.
Verified-user registry
A registry of verified app users gives the municipality oversight of who is using the platform.
How community engagement changed
Municipal communication and local business promotion moved from paper and word-of-mouth into a single platform the municipality runs itself.
Local catalog
Before
Scattered across paper & social media
After
One managed catalog of locations & categories
Residents and visitors find what they need in one place.
Business discounts
Before
Paper vouchers, no tracking
After
Digital coupons with redemption stats
The municipality can see which offers actually get used.
Announcements
Before
No direct channel
After
Push notifications to app users
Municipal news reaches people instantly, on the device they carry.
Platform ownership
Before
Would require ongoing developer involvement
After
Fully staff-managed admin console
The municipality runs its own content without external dependency.
Digital reach without adding headcount
≈ 2-3x
modeled efficiency vs. running the same programme on paper, first season
≈ 5-10 hours/month
estimated staff time reclaimed from printing, posting and manually tracking paper coupons
10,000 – 49,999 €
Payback period
Within the first tourist season
Method
Comparison of staff time spent on paper-based promotion and communication before vs. after, priced at municipal administrative cost
Confidence
Medium - based on operational comparison, not a controlled trial
This is a civic platform - impact is measured in community reach and operational efficiency, not commercial revenue.
A civic app with real content behind it, not just a shell
The platform is in production and used daily by municipal staff to run Smart Lopar. Live usage figures belong to the municipality; the figures below describe what changed operationally.
Digital catalog of locations & categories
Before
None
After
Fully managed, staff-editable
Ongoing
Business coupons issued through the app
Before
Paper-based, untracked
After
Digital, with per-coupon statistics
Since launch
Direct communication channel to app users
Before
None
After
Push notifications (Firebase Cloud Messaging)
Ongoing
Operational visibility for municipal staff
Before
None
After
Live dashboard
Live
Discovery categories in the app
Before
0
After
8 (events, trips, useful info, beaches, heritage, dining, sport, entertainment)
At launch
“Before, every price change or announcement meant printing something new or hoping people saw our Facebook post. Now we manage locations, coupons and notifications from one screen, and it reaches everyone who has the app - the same day.”
Digital Services Coordinator
Općina Lopar - Smart Lopar App
