Destination Videos & Apps: Inspire and Engage!

Mobile applications provide an efficient experience merging a huge amount of information and services down into one small mobile device, cancelling any previous reliance on maps, guide books or assistants making travel arrangements. As a recent CNN article notes, all sectors of the  travel and tourism industry are increasingly responding to the customers urge to transfer of most travel arrangements online. And they are not the only ones. In general a study by Forrester Research forecasts that companies will spend up to $17 billion over the next four years creating apps for their products. Revenue from selling these apps could reach $38 billion by 2015. 

What seems to be becoming clear to a growing segment of the industry and especially to destinations is that it is now more important than ever to be providing complete, spot on and inspiring information before, during and after visits!

Brazil's New -Trip Planning- YouTube Channel

It's fresh, it's organized, it's interactive, it's innovative.

Embratur, the Brazilian Tourism Board, just launched its two brand new tools in New York– an interactive YouTube Brand Channel and Brasil Quest, a new video game app.

The new branded YouTube channel is being used as a trip planning tool, providing customized content based on the time, duration and type of prospective visit. The channel of course offers a wide selection of videos for every Brazilian destination, which were already uploaded in YouTube by users and travellers, while it also features an interactive map integrated in every video.

Being able to create their own itinerary based on the selected dates, duration, company and interests they can then view the available videos on various destinations and make their selection forming their itinerary. They can then save their virtual trip, change it and create new ones. Booking them though is still not a possibility! Maybe that's the next step.

The second initiative was the launch of a free "Brasil Quest" game app for iPhone, iPad and Android, which launched at Times Square this week. The game celebrates the 12 Brazilian host cities of the 2014 FIFA World Cup through the journey of YEP, an alien that decides to visit Brazil in search of happiness and becomes enchanted with the country's beauty and offerings.

Source: www.braziltour.com

Wales is going Mobile

Mid Wales Tourism (MWT), which represents more than 550 tourism and hospitality businesses across Mid and South Wales, recently launched the ‘Show Me Wales’ iphone/ipad app and mobile website as an ‘one stop shop’ for visitors and locals, providing a comprehensive guide to things to see and do across the whole of Wales.

'Show Me Wales' is a comprehensive tourist guide to Wales including full details of hundreds of attractions, activities, places to eat, towns & villages and places to stay. The search functionality allows visitors to choose an area, search near a town, search near their current location, drop a pin and filter the data to highlight specific interests.

Each business entry describes the attraction with pictures, opening times and full contact details. Integrated with the Maps app, a quick link shows directions from their current location by car or on foot.

The app will be usable inside and outside of Wales, utilising GPS. Once the user is inside Wales, the app will plot and guide a user directly to the requested establishment from where they stand.

As MWT comments “It offers a sophisticated search facility so that when a visitor crosses the Welsh border the really clever bit kicks in. Using GPS technology, the app will locate the user and, using Google maps, will plot a range of tourist attractions, activities and even bookable accommodation within a user-specified radius.”

Source:  www.midwalestourism.co.uk