How SmartGuide leverages Knowledge Graph Data for innovative audio guide creation in Germany

Nowadays, as digital transformation is reshaping industries, the German National Tourist Board has made a significant stride by launching the Knowledge Graph - the largest data infrastructure project in the history of German tourism. This initiative, designed to enhance data literacy and create sustainable data structures, serves as a pivotal point for Germany's tourism sector, especially for its small and medium-sized enterprises, and in the wake of the latest AI development.

As part of this exciting development, SmartGuide, a leading platform for digital travel guides, is set to leverage the Knowledge Graph's extensive database. With access to over 200,000 up-to-date and high-quality data sets covering a wide range of tourist attractions, points of interest (POI), historical landmarks, and infrastructure components, SmartGuide plans to revolutionize the creation of digital audio guides in Germany.

This blog post will delve into how SmartGuide is utilizing the data from the German Knowledge Graph project to facilitate digital audio guide creation, aiming to enrich the experience for travelers visiting German tourist destinations and support local businesses in the tourism industry.

What is Knowledge Graph: The future of data management for inbound tourism to Germany

In the dynamic landscape of the travel industry, digital touchpoints have become an integral part of the customer journey. From initial inspiration sparked by immersive virtual reality, through the research, planning, and booking stages aided by conversational interfaces, to the actual travel experience enhanced with traveler IDs, digital guest cards, and real-time visitor flow management - digitalization has revolutionized how we travel.

However, these advancements also present their own set of challenges. The surge in online bookings that Germany experienced as well - now accounting for nearly 90% of all bookings from international guests - underscores the critical need for destinations to ensure their presence on digital platforms. But curating and maintaining up-to-date, high-quality data on these platforms is a daunting task. This is where the Knowledge Graph comes into play.

The Knowledge Graph, a robust data infrastructure project, serves as a central hub of information for the tourism industry. It offers access to a wealth of data sets covering a myriad of tourism assets and infrastructure components. By tapping into this rich resource, SmartGuide can effectively streamline the creation of digital guides, ensuring travelers have the most current and comprehensive information at their fingertips.

SmartGuide: Harnessing the power of AI and Knowledge Graph for efficient, personalized creation of digital audio guides in Germany

To respond to the global shift in the travel market, SmartGuide, the forefront digital tour guide system has embraced the Open Data project. This initiative allows us and our partners to leverage the vast commercial potential of tourism-related data through AI applications.

The Knowledge Graph, now live, provides all stakeholders - including global sales platforms, tourism service providers, start-ups, or digital platforms like SmartGuide - access to over 200,000 current, high-quality data sets freely available for download. As it stands, these data sets include 100,000 tourism assets (such as Points of Interest, tours, events, restaurants, cafes, hotels, etc.) and an additional 100,000 essential infrastructure elements. Sourced from all 16 federal states, the Knowledge Graph acts as Germany’s tourism industry's central database. Among other project partners are the Magic Cities marketing association, travel technology company Amadeus, the German Convention Bureau, and academic representatives.

Source: open-data-germany.org

The existing technical infrastructure also provides numerous public and private sector partners the chance to integrate their data stores with the Knowledge Graph through their destination marketing organization seamlessly.

In the context of SmartGuide, this wealth of data can be harnessed to create more comprehensive and personalized best online travel guides. Using this interconnected data, SmartGuide can offer travelers a unique exploration experience, tailored to their individual preferences and interests. With SmartGuide and Knowledge Graph, every journey becomes a personal narrative, transforming tourists into explorers.

A step-by-step guide to creating your own digital audio guide with SmartGuide

Creating a digital audio guide has never been more convenient and easy, thanks to SmartGuide, the world's #1 digital travel guide platform. With its cutting-edge AI-powered technology, tourist destinations and travel businesses can quickly and efficiently create and manage immersive audio guides that provide travelers with an enriched experience of their destination.

And, SmartGuide's connection with the Knowledge Graph is revolutionizing the quality of audio guides for businesses and destinations in Germany. This powerful connection will allow for the creation of contextual, personalized, and multilingual guides around the country.

By tapping into a vast network of interconnected data, the Knowledge Graph enhances the relevance and adaptability of the content, making each guide a unique journey tailored to the traveler's preferences.

However, destinations and travel businesses around the world can create engaging digital guides in as little as an hour even without connection to extensive national tourism databases, such as the Knowledge Graph in Germany. With SmartGuide, creating engaging and enriched travel experiences is as easy as a few clicks.

Let's walk through the steps

1. Sign up/Log in: The first step is to sign up for a new account or log in to your existing account on the SmartGuide platform.
2. Start a new project: Once you're logged in, you can start a new project. Click the 'Create New Guide' button, and you will be prompted to provide some basic information about your guide, such as the title, description, and location.
3. Add places of interest: Now, it's time to add the places of interest. You can manually input details like the name, description, and location, or you will be able to utilize the Knowledge Graph feature to pull relevant data. This feature is especially useful for businesses and destinations in Germany looking to create more contextual and personalized guides.
4. Create routes: After adding all the places, you can create routes that connect these places. SmartGuide allows you to set the order in which the places should be visited and the path that should be followed from one place to another.
5. Add audio content: The next step is to add audio content for each place of interest. You can either upload pre-recorded audio files or use the platform's text-to-speech feature to generate natural-sounding audio from the text descriptions.
6. Translate content: If you want your guide to be available in multiple languages, you can use SmartGuide's AI-based translation engine. This feature enables the creation of multilingual versions of a digital audio guide, enhancing its accessibility to international travelers.
7. Preview and publish: Once you've added all the content, you can preview your guide to ensure everything looks good. If you're satisfied, you can publish the guide so it becomes available on the SmartGuide app for travelers to use.
8. Update whenever needed: The beauty of digital travel guides is that they can be updated whenever something changes. With SmartGuide, you can easily make updates to your guide at any time.

With these simple steps, SmartGuide equips destinations and travel businesses with the tools to create immersive and engaging digital audio guides, offering travelers a unique and personalized way to explore their destinations.

Conclusion

The Knowledge Graph addresses key challenges faced by the tourism industry in the digital and AI era, providing a vast database of German points of interest that can be leveraged for the efficient creation of the best online travel guides or digital travel guides. By utilizing this resource, along with the power of AI, SmartGuide stands at the forefront of the digital transformation of the travel industry, ready to guide travelers on their journeys with ease and convenience.

Tourist destinations and travel businesses around the world can leverage SmartGuide to help them attract more visitors. With its cutting-edge AI-powered technology, users can quickly and efficiently create and manage immersive audio guides that provide travelers with an enriched experience of any destination. The platform's connection with the Knowledge Graph in Germany is revolutionizing the quality of audio guides, offering travelers a unique exploration experience tailored to their individual preferences and interests. 

Let's talk about the possibilities SmartGuide has to offer. Contact us today and find out how we can help you create the perfect digital audio guide for your destination, tourist attraction, or travel business.