Best-practice visitor experience in a destination

1 Preview the guide on your web with a web widget

The visitor journey starts already when travelers plan the trip and they like to know what guided or self-guided options you offer.

Travelers often plan on the web. With the advanced web widget, they can get an interactive preview of your guide on your own website. They can seamlessly transition into the app with the same content, adding functions that are handy on the go, such as geolocation, audio or offline. The content remains synchronized between your website and the app, all managed conveniently from one place.

In case your destination’s character requires to download the guide for offline use, for example due to poor mobile data coverage, the more visitors download the guide already at home, the less load for your staff and WiFi in tourist information centers. The responsive design also ensures the guide is accessible on mobile, and it can be easily added to your site with just one line of code. The widget’s style can be slightly customized (e.g. font) with the Prime Exclusive package and is also suitable for a touch screen kiosk in the information center.

You can see how it works in practice on the official website of Pilsen: www.visitplzen.eu/mobilni-pruvodce.

Preview of the guide on web with a web widget

2 Visitors like to be informed when they plan their visit 

We can also provide you with professional designs of materials to use on you social media, and distribute as leaflets or posters in tourism information offices and hotels nearby.

Professional designs of digital and offline materials

3 Inspire visitors in the tourist information center

Once visitors arrive at your Tourism Information Center, a visible a poster or rollup with a QR code can help them discover self-guided options even if the staff is busy talking to other guests.

The visitor-facing staff should be well familiar with the guide options so they should always be asked to try a SmartGuide tour. Destinations use SmartGuide tours also to onboard their new or seasonal staff and making the guide part of the onboarding is key to ensure the know how is sustained even as staff rotates. When they are familiar with the guide, the will be able to recommend to visitors what is best for them. For example, if you provide SmartGuide in foreign languages, it is good to always recommend the guide when foreigners come in.

This is also a great opportunity to sell your SmartGuided tours if you decide to do so.

     Informing visitors about SmartGuide on arrival

4 Link physical and digital map and align their content

One of the best places to communicate your digital guide on maps. Both the maps you hand out to visitors in information center, tear maps often available in hotels, but also large outdoor maps.  Visitors often like the familiar feeling of a large paper map where they can get oriented, and then have QR code to open SmartGuide digital map that adds the blue dot, navigation and guide content that does not fit on the printed map.

For a seamless experience, it is crucial to align the content. All places or tours listed on the paper map should be with consistent names, images or numbers also in SmartGuide.

Linking physical and digital map and aligning their content

5 SmartGuide is 24/7 guide even when visitor center closes

Our analytics shows that visitors often come to tourism information offices when they are closed. While live guides need to rest, your SmartGuide never sleeps. Place a sticker or a poster on the door of the tourism information office to provide your guests with information and guidance even when the tourism information office closes.

Door sticker with a QR code helps visitors even if the information center is off hours

6 Smart QR codes will open the right content

You might have noticed that each collateral only has a single QR code. SmartGuide uses smart QR codes

that automatically open the right content in the app. It will automatically do so in the visitor's preferred language based on their phone settings, amongst languages you provide.  if they don't have SmartGuide installed yet the same QR code will first determine whether they have Android or iOS, take them through the installation. and then open the right content.

So all you need is on QR code on each collateral, but we can provide you with different QR code for each collateral type so that you can track the sources in analytics.

Smart QR code opens the right content

7 Let visitors explore fully-self-guided in their own language 

Visitors can use SmartGuide like a traditional audio guide in their own language on their own phone and explore the destination by themselves.The SmartGuide app uses the GPS location to help visitors get oriented on a map and shows them places that are nearby. They can freely walk around your destination at their own pace avoiding crowds and have relevant information always at their fingertips.

The guide indicates clearly the top sights no 1st time visitor wants to miss, it is just important to link the places correctly in the Content Management System to places on the map to get priorities.

Besides top sights, you should include some diffen gems and practical places like toilets, authentic restaurants, and other relevant places. Write concise engaging content. Don't be too formal, visitors appreciate if you guide them as you would guide a friend. And it goes without saying that you should use attractive photos.

Visitors can enjoy self-guided tours in their preferred language

8 Offer guide in key languages, at least easy AI translations (30+ languages available)

Having a guide in their native language can make a huge difference in the experience for international visitors. Once you fine-tune your guide in one language, you can easily add translations. If the budget for human translations is limited, we can also translate all content including audio in 30 languages using AI very inexpensively allowing you to broaden the language offering. So even if you don't provide guide services in Portuguese, Polish or Chinese, visitors speaking these languages will get a machine translation including audio in their preferred language. This can be a game changer in catering to these audiences who find it more difficult to find information when traveling. An AI translation may not be perfect, but it is perfectly accepted by international visitors in online channels as long as it is clearly indicated as an AI translation and it can also help you with SEO to attract more visitors from these audiences. Always make sure to proofread the AI translation outcome and fix errors in pronunciation.  

Smartguide offers guides in multiple languages including AI translations

9 Artificial intelligence recommends different places to everyone based on their interests, helping to disperse crowds

SmartGuide also provides visitors personalized recommendations based on their interests. This all happens automatically. SmartGuide AI understands what your content is about and from the user interactions with the app understands their interests and then matches the less known places with these interests. So the more places and more diverse content you provide the more can SmartGuide help you disperse the crowds.

Our analytics can also help you understand the gaps in your content coverage compared to visitor interests.

                                           Personalized recommendations in SmartGuide digital audio guide app

10 Connect places of interest into a self-guided tour

About half of the visitors usually like to take a recommended tour that will introduce the destination as if they walked with a live guide. A tour usually connects 5 to 20 places of interest with a recommended route. In destinations, most tours are walking, but you can do also driving tours, bike tours, accessible tours and other types.

SmartGuide allows content creators to connect places of interest into a self-guided tour 

11 Start with a mainstream introduction tours

There should always be a mainstream introduction tour for a typical first-time visitor. It usually starts at the tourism office or the main point of interest, and takes tourists all the must-see places and gives them a good overview of the destination. 
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Introduction of the tours in SmartGuide digital audio guide app

12 Be more relevant with tours for different audiences 

To engage all visitors, make them stay longer and come back, besides the introductory tour, provide also tours for different audiences, For example, a different tour for children and adults, an accessible tour, or a detailed tour for history geeks. From the tour name and introduction, the visitor should be able to understand which tour is best for them.

Different guides for the same tours for different demographics in SmartGuide

13 Use a 'Trigger zone' to play POI audio at the right moment

As visitors walk through the destinations, they get notified when they approach a point of interest. If they are on a tour, an audio playback will start automatically just as if you were walking with a live guide.

For this to work like magic, it is important to set correctly the area called “Trigger zone” for each place. When the phone detects that user entered the Trigger zone based  on their geolocation, the content will launch.

By default, trigger zones are circles around the place. But for many places and crowded areas, this is not optimal and you can define any trigger zones using polygons.

GPS is very accurate on good phones with an unobstructed view of the sky,  but the accuracy can go down on cheaper phones or when the sky is blocked by buildings or rocks or if a user moves fast, so it is important to consider an appropriate buffer.

If the POI is a small statue in a park, you probably want to trigger the story in a radius of about 20 meters around the statue which is the default setting if you don't change anything. But for example, a 20 meters circle around the center of the Eiffel Tower which has a base of 125 meters would only trigger when the user arrives at the top. It is visible from far away so you can probably go with a 200 meters radius or even more to include it in a guide. If you want to be even more precise and launch the story only when a tourist arrives say from the Seine River, you can move the center of the trigger zone or make a trigger zone in the shape of a polygon.

While you can edit trigger zones by yourself in the Content Management System, our content team has lots of experience to set it up correctly for you.

Play POI audio at the right moment in SmartGuide with trigger zone

14 Use unique QR codes for each POI to open the correct content

For users who skipped the tourist information office or did not allow GPS location and notifications, it is important to provide an alternative way to launch the correct content.

The best way is placing QR codes for the digital guide on thee information signs at Points of Interest. Each place has a unique QR code so the appropriate content will open upon scanning. You don't want to have physical information boards in 10 languages to avoid visual congestion, but you can easily have digital guide in 10 languages. So put printed information in one or two languages and then indicated that other languages are available upon scanning the QR code.

Whether the visitors take a recommended tour or wander around the destination as they like, they will get notified when they arrive near a Place of Interest. Users who don't provide the app with notification permissions can scan a QR code at signs informing about individual places of interest and the content for the specific place will open

To avoid confusing visitors, it’s important to have consistent naming, numbering and content in online and offline materials, as well as with physical marking system.

But one thing to keep in mind is that it must be absolutely clear to visitors what happens if they scan the QR code. There should be clear indication that it opens and audioguide in an app in some language. We cans ee in analytics that a standalone QR code does not work. We are happy to provide you with templates.

Unique QR codes for each POI opens the correct content

15 Engaging stories from local guides make visitors stay longer, audio makes the experience more immersive

The stories about places should be the best from local guides, explaining what makes the place interesting. It should be engaging and fun, not a boring history lesson.

All content is also available as audio which is more enjoyable for users than reading texts - instead of staring at a screen they can listen and look around the place.

The Sternberk castle, for example, replaced paper guides that tourists did not read much with SmartGuide and they were impressed to find that all of a sudden, visitors consumed 80% of the content. It was the same content that was available on paper that only few read.

Human audio full of emotion is best, but AI audio also became ok. If you don't provide human audios, SmartGuide automatically records all guide texts as audio using the latest text-to-speech technology. Such TTS audio is very good for regular text, but often makes mistakes in pronunciation of local names or acronyms. No worried, with just a little bit of budget, our team can teach AI to pronounce these correctly too and you can easily edits texts anytime and this correct pronunciation will stay.

16 Navigation suffixes tell visitors where to go

When a visitor is done visiting a place on a tour, they are informed where to go next and can also navigate easily on the interactive map that displays the tour route and their location. While walking to the next place, you can give them some more background information.

 SmartGuide's navigation suffixes tell visitors where to go next

17 Lead tourists out of crowded center and out of hotspots

Prague digitized paper guides on SmartGuide and inspired app users to spend 30% of their time outside of the crowded city center by telling them interesting stories about less visited places. This is the key to sustainable tourism. According to Petr Soukup, Digital Specialist, Prague City Tourism, "Publishing 10 walking tours on SmartGuide allowed us to expand the content beyond what fits in paper brochures and it only took 2 weeks. But what is even more impressive, SmartGuide tours  help motivate tourists to spend more time outside of most popular crowded places. This is one of the keys to sustainable tourism."

Prague inspired 30% of tourists out of crowded center with SmartGuide

18 Improve visitors experience based on data

SmartGuide collects detailed data on how users are acquired, how they consume the content, where they go and what they miss so we can provide you with fact-based insights on how to make the experience even better. The more tourists use the guide the better insights you will get from the big data analytics.

And if this level of insight is not enough we can also send users a custom survey.

SmartGuide's data analytics tools - data dasboards and GPS heatmaps

19 Let tourists know news and events by embedding calendar from your responsive web

The description of your landmarks can stay the same for years. But visitors also like to be informed about the events taking place in the destination. With SmartGuide, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. You can simply embed any responsive webpage inside the app. A typical use case is a calendar of events that you maintain up to date on your web, but it can include a quiz, booking site or a webcam. It can also be used to show an overview of local accommodation capacities.

Avoid duplicating work and add your web functionalities directly in the app. Tabs with dynamic content can be loaded from any responsive web page. Please just note that the website should be optimized for such view so that it is pure content without many other distracting elements, such as web headers, navigation or menus.

Embedding calendar from your responsive web with SmartGuide

20 Use Augmented Reality to create immersive experiences

To really immerse visitors, places can also include Augmented Reality experiences. AR can bring historical places and events to life, let visitors virtually interact with objects they could not touch and just have lots of fun. You can display an image, video, 3D model, or animated model in AR—either placed on GPS coordinates, triggered by a marker, or positioned right in front of the user. This also allows visitors to relive historical scenes or buildings that no longer exist.

Augmented reality feature in SmartGuide's digital audio guide platform

21 A single guide also for your region and attractions

SmartGuide offers the most flexible content architecture on the market that provides each tourism organisation with a space to promote their area and creates a seamless experience for a traveler. So for example, within Spain is Andalusia region, within that is Malaga destination. The English Cemetery is a Place within Malaga with a short POI description. When we visit it, we can “double click” to Explore and get a detailed tour of the Cemetery with its own Places of Interest, such as the Gate House or tombstones of famous people.

Invite regional tourism boards and local attractions to participate and all benefit from a single technology plus you can get better data and more users.

Creation of a single guide also for region and attractions with SmartGuide

22 Collect feedback and let happy visitors share the guide

We hope that your visitors had a great experience exploring your destination with SmartGuide. If yes, SmartGuide encourages them to share the Tour or any Place with their friends easily with one button. And if there is a space for improvement, we encourage visitors to “Suggest an improvement” that we can either resolve directly or share back to you.

  "Suggest an improvement" feature in SmartGuide

23 Test the experience before launch

We hope this will be useful when you plan to design an awesome self-guided experience at your destination and you are ready to learn how to do it in the subsequent videos. Once you are done building your guide, please test the visitor experience yourself with your colleagues to make sure it presents your destination in the best possible way.

For a perfect experience, SmartGuide experts can also do a quick remote or a full onsite implementation visit to help you identify gap to best practice and most importantly how to close them.

Make sure to test your guide before launch