São João da Madeira Industrial Tourism

Initial situation

The City Council of São João da Madeira is a public entity with ongoing projects in the tourism sector. In order to promote the municipality and their Industrial Tourism Project – “Routes for Industrial Heritage”, they decided to acquire a set of technological solutions. This way they would be able to attract new visitors and investors, by adding value to the already high quality tourism products and services. Additionally, they would be able to enhance the experiences provided for their customers.

One of the main problems identified by the municipality was that they were still using paper-based touristic guides, which failed to keep visitors updated about the evolution of the industries and services, and has also a huge impact for the environment.

SÃO JOÃO DA MADEIRA INDUSTRIAL TOURISM APP

 

Solution

Ubiwhere took the challenge to develop the solution TourEmotion, which integrates four distinct solutions (Walk, Discover, Enjoy and Play) that aim to increase the visibility and projection of any business. The solutions developed by the company were as follows:

  • Two solutions from the TourEmotion were implemented: Walk (outdoor application) and Discover (indoor application);
  • A mobile guide for the iOS operative system, including offline and online maps, custom mapping imagery, fine-grained location; custom-built multimedia data (e.g. images, videos, audio, among others), routes, POI, distance-measuring, geocaching support, QR Code recognition, and outdoor and indoor modes.

The target market is people from 8 to 88 years old, so the User Interface (UI) needed to be simple but appellative, thus transmitting the intended messages. The mobile guides can be downloaded by tourists in the apple store or supplied by the municipality at the Welcome Centres. Ubiwhere also provided a number of mobile devices that could then be rented by tourists.

Project results

  • This project was developed to promote the municipality and the touristic services through a set on Interactive, Innovative and Intuitive Applications;
  • Visitors feel that the municipality is using great technology to improve their stay and visit;
  • Visitors can access a significant amount of information in a creative and intuitive way.

The feedback has been very positive and has contributed to improve the applications. This feedback resulted in updates and new versions. New experimental features in other products were also developed as a consequence of this feedback. Both solutions are still in current use in São João da Madeira.