The London Pass was the UK's first smart card city pass and was launched in 1999 by the Leisure Pass Group, a specialist tourism company that creates and manages local smart card pass systems. It was followed this year by passes for Bath and, most recently, York. There are four more, as yet undisclosed, cities lined up to implement the system.
The idea for a London city pass came from seeing a similar initiative being run in Stockholm in Sweden. It was clear that the same idea could be applied to London.

Generating more awareness and more customers is what all operators strive to achieve. A third party partnership is of mutual benefit as each company is striving for the same end of bringing in more visitors. Getting involved in a city pass scheme is one way of boosting visitor numbers and has the added advantage of allowing operators to gather customer data.

Data capture and smart card technology
The smart card system allows users to simply swipe their card through a special reader, normally at the till point in a venue, activating the card the first time it is used. It is then activated for the relevant number of days, according to which pass has been purchased. The passes vary in cost, for instance, the London Pass is £24 for an adult for the minimum one day, including travel, and £89 for the maximum six days. This technology benefits the venues as readers are installed in all terminals to collect data that can be useful for venues to find out who their customers are.