Optimal strategies for enhancing guest engagement at a tourist destination
Discover how to create an outstanding self-guided experience for guests at your destination using SmartGuide.
By learning from effective strategies used at other locations, we’ll explore the visitor’s viewpoint to uncover what transforms a trip into a captivating adventure. This post will break down every element step by step, guiding you in crafting an unforgettable experience for your audience.
Assist travelers in organizing their trip ahead of their arrival
Notify visitors about the digital guide available on your website.
Enhance the distribution of your digital guide at ticket sales locations
Ensure your team is well-trained and clearly communicate guidelines to visitors upon their arrival.
6 Guarantee visitor satisfaction by providing offline access to guide materials
7 Ensure digital and offline materials are synchronized for uniformity
9 Scatter groups using AI-powered navigation and tailored suggestions
Link 10 points of interest to create a self-paced exploration route.
Tailor tours to better suit diverse audiences for increased relevance.
12 Assign unique QR codes to every POI to access the corresponding content
13 Create a high-quality audio track to enhance visitor engagement and deepen their immersion in the experience.
Enhance user engagement by integrating AR components into the experience.
Easily integrate personalized surveys or engaging interactive quizzes with just 16 steps.
Assist travelers in organizing their trip in advance of their arrival
For countless travelers, the journey starts during the planning phase. It’s essential to inform them about the availability of guided or self-guided experiences at various attractions. To promote effectively, utilize SmartGuide’s free visuals (provided in the welcome package), featuring links and QR codes for your guide, across social media platforms, brochures, or displays placed in tourism offices and hotels.
Guides’ QR codes and links featured in SmartGuide’s visual materials
Notify guests about the online guide available on your website.
More and more travelers begin planning their journeys online. SmartGuide’s innovative web widget lets them interact with a dynamic preview of your guide right on your website. This seamless experience transitions to the app, providing handy mobile features such as geolocation, audio, and offline access. For websites that support offline guide downloads, prompting visitors to download before arriving can help reduce strain on your local WiFi network.
Enhance the distribution of your digital guide at ticket sales locations
If you decide to offer SmartGuide to guests, similar to how numerous museums provide their own guidebooks for purchase,audio toursThe most effective method is to include the guide as an option during ticket purchase at the checkout. Guests are significantly more inclined to add a guide for a small additional cost when it’s seamlessly combined with their tickets, as opposed to buying it separately afterward. Price the self-guided product in the low single-digit Euros or a similar amount to ensure it remains an appealing and effortless upsell.
Display the SmartGuide QR code on the ticket alongside the guide.
To limit access to your content until guests buy an entry ticket, you can keep it hidden and only unlock it when they scan a QR code. This code may be printed on the ticket or shown once they pass a ticket verification point.
Ensure your team is well-trained and clearly communicate guidelines to visitors upon their arrival.
Visitor-facing employees must have thorough knowledge of the available guide choices and provide the best recommendations to guests. For example, if SmartGuide is utilized for foreign languages, staff should propose it to international visitors upon their arrival.
Connect physical and digital maps by integrating QR codes
Visitors are most interested in discovering the self-guided option as soon as they arrive at the attraction. A detailed map, suggested paths, and guidance on exploring the site and its highlights are highly valued. Placing a large physical map at the entrance helps guests orient themselves, and it should include a QR code for scanning to access the digital geolocated map in SmartGuide on their mobile devices. In addition to maps, posters or informational displays can also be used.
Scanning the SmartGuide QR code instantly directs users to the corresponding content within the app, adapting to their chosen language according to their device settings. For those without SmartGuide, the QR code identifies their operating system—Android or iOS—and leads them through the setup steps.
6 Guarantee visitor satisfaction by providing offline access to guides
SmartGuide is designed to function online by default, retrieving only essential content to reduce mobile data consumption. Users, however, can choose to download the full guide—complete with maps, points of interest, tours, text, visuals, audio clips, and brief videos—for offline use. This capability is especially useful at locations with weak connectivity, like castles with dense walls or subterranean sites, as well as for international travelers looking to avoid roaming fees. Most visitors opt to download the guide upon arrival after discovering its availability. If offline access is critical for the experience, SmartGuide can notify users to download the content beforehand. Ensure high-speed WiFi is accessible at the entrance to support multiple downloads at once.
SmartGuide digital audio guide app offers an offline mode feature.
Ensure digital and offline materials are synchronized to maintain uniformity.
Moreover, users anticipate that the digital guide will correspond with physical signage, maps, and printed materials—featuring identical paths, spot numbers, and destinations. That said, digital guides can provide extended descriptions, extra visuals, supplementary languages, and even more attractions, as they aren’t constrained by the spatial limitations of paper-based resources.
8 Allow visitors to independently navigate using GPS-activated autoplay features.
The SmartGuide app offers a personalized audio guide experience in the user’s chosen language, accessible directly from their smartphone. With GPS functionality, it assists in navigating the attraction and shows nearby points of interest. Users can explore freely at their own speed, staying clear of crowds while accessing important details effortlessly. Additionally, the app pinpoints must-see locations, guaranteeing that newcomers experience all the highlights.
9 Manage crowds using AI-powered guidance and tailored suggestions
Similar to YouTube or Netflix, SmartGuide delivers tailored suggestions that instantly adapt to individual user preferences. Utilizing AI, the platform analyzes both content and visitor behavior, directing users to undiscovered attractions suited to their specific interests. By offering a wide range of options, venues can optimize crowd distribution and showcase underutilized spots.
Customized suggestions within the SmartGuide digital audio guide application
Link 10 points of interest to create a self-paced walking route
Around 50% of guests favor taking a structured tour that provides a thorough overview of the site, mimicking the experience of having an actual guide. This tour must include all key highlights and deliver a summary perfect for newcomers, beginning at the main entry point.
Tailor tours to better suit diverse audiences for increased relevance.
To captivate a wide range of visitors, attractions can offer tailored tours designed for specific groups, such as separate experiences for children and adults, accessible tours, or in-depth explorations for history enthusiasts. The tour title and description should clearly indicate which option suits each visitor best.
SmartGuide offers tailored tour guides designed for various demographic groups, ensuring each experience is customized to meet their specific needs.
Assign a unique QR code to every POI to ensure the appropriate content is accessed.
Visitors can choose to follow a guided tour or explore the attraction at their own pace, receiving alerts as they near points of interest. If notifications are disabled, QR codes stationed throughout the site provide an alternative—simply scan them with a phone to access related content. This system guarantees that guests have instant access to information, no matter their preferred way of experiencing the attraction.
Positioning QR codes to accompany SmartGuide’s audio tour content
13 Create a high-quality audio track to enhance visitor engagement and deepen their immersion in the experience.
Guests can delight in captivating tales shared by resident guides, showcasing the unique qualities that define every destination.creating an experience that is both captivating and enjoyableInstead of a tedious history lecture, engaging audio guides enable visitors to fully experience their environment without fixating on a screen. That said, certain locations might be enriched with supplementary visuals—such as archival images or footage—like a historical industrial site in operation or a now-crumbling structure, to deepen the narrative.
For example, Sternberk Castle switched from seldom-used paper guides to SmartGuide and discovered that 80% of the digital material was actively accessed—demonstrating how adopting an interactive guide can greatly enhance visitor participation.
For users who don’t have headphones, the audio can be softly played through the phone’s speaker, held close to the ear like a regular call, allowing them to enjoy the content without bothering those around them.
Visitors who don’t have headphones can listen to audio by playing it through a call mode, ensuring they don’t bother those around them.
Enhance user engagement by integrating AR features into the experience
provides a dynamic method for visitors to connect with historical locations and occurrences. Through augmented reality, these aspects are revitalized, enabling users to digitally engage with artifacts beyond physical reach, enhancing both entertainment and exploration.
SmartGuide’s digital audio guide platform incorporates an augmented reality functionality.
15 Incorporate navigation suffixes to guide visitors toward their next steps
As travelers finish each segment of the tour, they are directed to the following destination with the help of a dynamic map that shows the planned route and their real-time position. Throughout the experience, they also access supplementary details, enhancing their exploration with deeper insights and narratives.
SmartGuide’s directional indicators guide users to their subsequent destinations.
16 Easily integrate custom surveys or interactive quizzes
A straightforwardquizallows visitors to assess their understanding at the end of the tourEngaging participants may earn a charming keepsake, like a postcard, ensuring their experience is both unforgettable and fulfilling.
Gather feedback and encourage satisfied visitors to distribute the guide.
Encourage your guests to share their wonderful moments discovering your attraction using SmartGuide. A single click lets them effortlessly recommend their preferred tours and spots to loved ones. For aspects that might benefit from refinement, visitors can “Suggest an Improvement,” enabling feedback to be handled promptly or forwarded to you.
Enhance visitor experience by leveraging big data and heatmap analytics.
SmartGuide collects detailed information on user acquisition, content interaction, and visitor journeys to provide meaningful analytics. These data-driven insights enable ongoing enhancements to the visitor experience. As tourist interaction with the guide increases, the accuracy of big data analytics grows, revealing a more precise understanding of visitor behavior and preferences. For users desiring further analysis, custom surveys can be distributed to visitors, guaranteeing thorough and practical feedback.
SmartGuide’s analytics solutions – data dashboards and GPS heatmaps
Ready to elevate your visitors’ experience like never before?
Leverage this essential information as a base to begin crafting an exceptional self-guided tour for your attraction. Once your guide is developed, collaborate with your team to conduct firsthand testing of the visitor journey. This guarantees your attraction is showcased in the most impactful and engaging manner.
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