With the summer season coming to an end, it is a great time to reflect on how it was and what lies ahead of us. If you walked recently through the center of Venice, Paris, or other popular destinations, you noticed an increasing amount of tourists and each summer weekend seemed busier than the one before. With progressing vaccinations and easing restrictions travelers can now eat in restaurants, visit indoor attractions, and walk without face masks. It might seem that tourism is slowly recovering back to normal. But then it strikes you that one thing is very different from before the pandemic.
There are very few tour groups, just couples, families and small groups of friends. Many tourists learnt to travel independently when there was no other option and they wanted to keep healthy away from the crowds. Now they are reluctant to return to inconvenient tour groups. Why would they, when it is so easy now to do travel bookings online and go on convenient and safe self-guided audio tours with SmartGuide?
Progressive DMOs (Destination Management Organization) recognize this shift towards individual tourism and want to attract and engage more tourists with self-guided tours. The ready-made digital guide platform developed by SmartGuide makes this a breeze. DMOs can publish their city guides including audio walking tours through the Smart Guide Content Management System quickly and easily. They can send messages to visitors right to their phones, learn from insightful analytics, and all of that without any IT development.
Travelers then enjoy their visit more. They can explore conveniently at their own pace. They get guided not only to the must-see sights, but also to recommended hidden gems in the destination and are notified about places of interest automatically based on their GPS location. They listen to interesting stories about the places they visit in their preferred languages, even if they are offline. Tourists get scattered across the destination without making crowds like tour groups which makes it more enjoyable for tourists and sustainable for locals.
Discover how to transform your visitors' experience with SmartGuide. Schedule a demo now!
Progressive DMOs use SmartGuide as the single guide solution for the entirety of the city and its attractions. For example, Plzen, the 4th biggest city in the Czech Republic, published its official city guide on SmartGuide. When visitors come to its prime attraction, the famous Pilsner Urquell Brewery, they embark on an immersive audiovisual indoor guided tour with SmartGuide instead of being guided with a traditional, unhygienic hardware audioguide. You don't need to leave the app even when you visit the local ZOO. Instead of big information boards blocking the view, visitors listen to stories about the animals conveniently from their phones.
No wonder more destinations choose to smartguide their visitors. There were over 200 new destination guides published in the last year. Just last month Switzerland Tourism published guides for 24 destinations in Switzerland on the SmartGuide platform.
Looking to take your travel business to the next level? Talk to us today and discover the power of SmartGuide's digital guide solutions!