Travel has significantly evolved, with self-guided tours becoming a popular choice for modern explorers. This shift, influenced by dynamic visitor preferences and events like the pandemic, has increased the demand for flexible, independent tourism. To cover that, digital travel guide platforms, such as SmartGuide, offer a fast track to creating engaging and informative audio guides for independent travelers. Thanks to this, destination management organizations (DMOs), tourist attractions, tour operators, and travel businesses can publish and even sell their digital guides and self-guided tours to their visitors.
A visitor on a self-guided tour of a city checking SmartGuide digital tour guide app on his phone
Read more to explore how SmartGuide’s audio guides benefit visitors, and how SmartGuide platform provides the easiest way to publish self-guided tours.
Established to aid the travel industry and independent travelers, SmartGuide serves as a hub for digital audio guides, much like YouTube acts as a platform for videos. For visitors seeking inspiration, it's a goldmine of places waiting to be discovered.
The process of how audio tour guides are created and published has been simplified by SmartGuide for content creators such as tourist destinations, attractions, tour operators, and tourism businesses. This tour guide system also eliminates the need for IT development and maintenance.
Here's how to create a guide using the SmartGuide content management system (CMS):
1. Visit cms.smart-guide.org and register an account.
2. Search for and open the desired destination.
3. Create new points of interest on the map, describing them as if guiding a friend. This is where local knowledge shines.
4. Enhance the visitor's experience by adding images, audio, video, or an AR model to the point of interest.
5. Organize the content into tours, providing a logical flow for visitors.
6. Promote yourself as the guide author with a profile and a link to your website in SmartGuide on every piece of content provided.
7. If desired, earn extra revenue by selling the content.
8. Make easy content updates whenever something changes. This flexibility is a significant advantage over printed guides, which can't be updated once published.
With SmartGuide's tour guide solution, creating a self-guided tour is a straightforward way to share local expertise with visitors from around the world. The entire process, from signing up to having a professional guide ready, can be completed in just a few hours (OG content authors can make it even in as little as one hour).
The SmartGuide team is also available to help with professional content preparation. However, content creators have the freedom to do it all independently and entirely free of charge.
It's super easy to join SmartGuide and publish a digital guide
SmartGuide, standing as the world's #1 digital audio guide platform, offers three distinct options for audio tracks in the digital guides. The first is Text-to-Speech (TTS) audio, which automatically converts written text into spoken words for easy updates. The second option is TTS with phonemes, which improves the pronunciation of foreign names and acronyms. For emotional depth, there's the third option of Human audio, with professional voice actors. Content creators can also upload personal audio files or have the SmartGuide team create professional recordings.
Here are the pros and cons of each option:
Seamless app maintenance and effective marketing strategies are vital for success in the digital era. Here's how SmartGuide excels in offering strong maintenance support and effective marketing tools, all while being a cost-effective solution.
1. Global cloud-based technologyThe platform utilizes reliable cloud-based technology for secure data storage on AWS with a 99.99% uptime guarantee. This enables fast global availability through the Content Delivery Network and unlimited scalability.
2. Full app maintenance and automatic updatesSmartGuide handles the automatic updates that align with the latest Android and iOS changes. Unlike custom apps that are costly to maintain, SmartGuide offers full app maintenance by default. It also ensures 5+ years of sustainability for public funding and even manages end-user support.
3. Effective marketing supportThe SmartGuide digital audio guide platform provides extensive marketing support. Content creators receive a dedicated deep link and QR code, which directly opens their content across all devices. The marketing welcome package for content authors includes a website integration widget, marketing poster and sticker designs, web banners, and global platform visibility. These features aim to enhance visitors' reach and engagement.
In the case of the SmartGuide platform, the value received outweighs the investment, eliminating concerns about maintenance or marketing support. The good news is that despite a €0.5M investment in developing this technology, SmartGuide offers its basic version for free.
SmartGuide is a preferred choice for destinations, tourist attractions, and travel businesses that have found massive value in digitizing their guides. Here's what some of them have to say about this leading digital travel guide platform:
1. Barbora Tinterova, City Tourism Bureau, Mariánské Lázně: "We first digitized the guide to our city on the SmartGuide platform in 2017 and we immediately won first place in the Golden Coat of Arms competition, which recognizes innovations in tourism. Since then, the application has improved even further and everything works perfectly."
2. Stephan Duempelfeld, Deutsche Bahn Mitte: “We have been looking for a truly innovative solution that can these days attract locals and tourists back onto green trains from cars and buses, show them how interesting our regions are and extend our exposure to the customers with an up/cross-sell potential beyond our trains – SmartGuide.”
3. Helena Gottwaldová, Sternberk Castle Manager: "We use the SmartGuide application for foreign language visitors. This solves the problem of the lack of foreign language live guides. We chose SmartGuide instead of paper and traditional audio guides because the application is much more attractive to visitors. We were positively surprised by the results that during the first season, users of the application consumed an average of an incredible 80% of all content."
4. Tomáš Rieger, General Manager of the Terezín Memorial: “After three years of using the SmartGuide guide application, we have newly expanded the content in cooperation with the city of Terezín. For the new season, we will have one official application for visitors to the Memorial and the city of Terezín."
5. Peter Soukup, Head of Digital, Prague City Tourism: "We are already excited about enhancing our two walking tour brochures into 10 multimedia guides in less than a month. We could not believe that SmartGuide motivated 30% of tourists to explore beyond the over-crowded Royal route."
These testimonials showcase the real-world impact of SmartGuide. The digitization ease, attractive presentation, solution to language barriers, and ability to motivate tourists to explore hidden gems are key reasons why top partners choose SmartGuide. Their experiences exemplify the significant benefits and potential that SmartGuide offers.
Creating a guide with SmartGuide is incredibly easy and user-friendly. Just follow the simple steps below, and your guide will be ready to launch in a few hours. To ensure your guide is truly engaging and enjoyable to listen to, we highly recommend watching some of our best practice videos and tips. Investing just a bit of extra time will really pay off, ensuring your guide stands out and captivates your audience.
Begin by signing up for the SmartGuide Content Management System (CMS).
Then, focus on creating high-quality content that includes identifying points of interest and mapping out routes. Write descriptive texts, add photographs and/or videos for each location and tour, and add translations to provide content in 30 languages.
SmartGuide automatically generates TTS audio out of text descriptions. You can also record audio for each place with human actors and upload it to the CMS.
As a cost-saving option instead of human audio in various languages, SmartGuide can generate audio using the most advanced AI-driven TTS (text to speech) technology and optimized phonemes (teaching the AI to pronounce correctly local names, acronyms, etc.) for a nominal fee.
Test the content on your phone before publishing (ideally on location) and fine-tune it so that all works as expected, including narration, trigger zones etc.).
Alternatively, the SmartGuide team can handle the entire guide creation process for you as a turn-key service.
Creating a guide on SmartGuide's content management system
Once the guide is ready, SmartGuide will provide:
By following these steps, tour operators and content creators, in general, can efficiently craft and distribute digital guides, offering a modern and accessible way for travelers to explore and enjoy their destinations.
For free content authors without SmartGuide Prime, the tours will be set by default as private on SmartGuide and not visible to the general SmartGuide app users publicly (only accessible via the QR code we provide).
Tour operators can sell the tours via QR codes and matching activation links through their existing channels: on-premises, via their websites, or via platforms such as Viator. Once a visitor purchases the tour, an activation link or QR code will be shared with the buyer. This model suits tours that are part of another product, like boat or bus tours.
These digital audio tours can be marketed as standalone options or bundled with transportation and entrance tickets, presenting a versatile solution that accommodates varying visitors' preferences.
Content creators can sell content directly with tickets or in-app
Tour operators gain complimentary access to a Content Management System (CMS), enabling them to upload their content and specify geolocations for their tours effortlessly. This feature is free, encouraging operators to digitize their offerings without significant initial investment.
For those requiring assistance in crafting compelling digital guides, additional support is available. Services, including content preparation, copywriting, and translations, are offered to ensure top-notch, engaging guides. The pricing for these services varies based on the project's scope, providing flexibility to accommodate different needs and budgets.
SmartGuide makes it simple and cost-effective to deliver a premium audio experience to your passengers for just a few cents per rider, while you retain full control of your content. Each plan includes a CMS for easy editing, a branded screen accessible via Smart QR codes, an ad-free version with offline access, and complete app operations, upgrades, and maintenance handled by the SmartGuide team for you.
The following plans include monthly fees based on your annual passenger volume:
This EXTRA maintenance package also includes priority support, AI tour planner, priority customer support, free content publishing, embedding web functionalities in the guide app.
AI guide chat, visitor Data analytics dashboards, Augmented Reality, User messaging and Content creation support are sold separately.
For more information, watch the video:
SmartGuide provides tour operators with a straightforward and scalable way to digitize their tours and reach a broader audience. With clear pricing, powerful AI features, and comprehensive technical support, it streamlines the complexities of app development while opening up new income opportunities. By combining multilingual digital guides, detailed analytics, and flexible monetization options, SmartGuide helps operators meet the rising demand for self-guided travel and deliver a modern experience that today’s travelers expect.
SmartGuide's digital travel guide platform has become an integral part of the travel industry. Visitors benefit from detailed information, interactive maps, and rich multimedia content. The self-guided tours allow for a personalized journey at the visitor's own pace. Furthermore, tourist destinations, attractions, tour operators, and travel businesses can easily digitize their content, making it globally accessible without marketing and app maintenance challenges. With selling guide options, they can earn revenue and boost tourism in the best possible manner.
Join the 1,300+ destinations already on SmartGuide and be part of the future of travel. Don't miss out on the exciting opportunity to put yourself on the map of 1,300,000 modern travelers. Start today!