Tech N.O. Tourists
Downloadable tours, touch-screen kiosks reinvent industry
by Fritz Esker
New technology changed the ways people listen to music and watch movies. It also changed the tourist experience in New Orleans.
Touch screen kiosks have been installed at the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention & Visitors Bureau headquarters...
Another technological tourism development uses the iPod and other MP3 players. Audissey Guides, a Boston-based company, is offering digital city tours at its Web site, www.audisseyguides.com.
Rob Pyles, president and founder of Audissey Guides, expects about 8,000 tours downloaded the first year in New Orleans.
Audissey plans to expand to San Francisco, New York and Dublin, Ireland, said Pyles.
The New Orleans tour takes the visitor through the French Quarter and the Marigny.
Pyles planned to offer CD tours but discovered demand for downloadable digital tours was about 10-to-1 over CD tours, making things easier for him.
A digital tour can be downloaded an infinite number of times while CDs have to be manufactured. The MP3 player tours are also cheaper to update than producing a new CD.
From the tourist perspective, Pyles gears his tours toward 21- to 40-year-olds. New Orleanian Brent Baudean, a poet and street musician, is the Crescent City audio tour guide.
“The best way to see a city is to have a friend there and that’s what we provide,” Pyles said. “We want to be respectful and authentic ... tell the real story, not the Hollywood cliché.”
The tour and estimated walking distances are timed, so the user does not have to pause. While walking, the visitor can listen to a soundtrack featuring local music. The New Orleans tour features Dixieland, jazz, Goth and electronica.
Downloadable tours also allow users to visits sights whenever they want.
“You don’t have to follow a group of 20 to 30 people around. ... You don’t look like a tourist. You look like any other local walking around,” Pyles said.
Pyles said digital tours are the next evolution in online tourism. “Everyone books their plane tickets and travel accommodations online. This is the next step,” Pyles said.
Freedom Trail Foundation in Boston launched an MP3 tour in mid-July and has been pleased with the response. It was previously available on a rentable hand-held audio device for three years.
“We’re finding that people plan ahead and download the tour before they arrive in Boston,” said Mimi LaCamera, the foundation’s president. “We think downloads give visitors the chance to listen and learn in the car before they come. It allows them to do the Freedom Trail once they know their convention schedule and when they are out of meetings.”
LaCamera said the downloadable tours fill a void especially during the winter, when fewer costumed guided tours are offered.
“We don’t think the virtual experience will ever equal or take the place of the real experience of walking, hearing, touching and immersion into history along Boston’s street, but it’s a great way to get pretty close.”
The Audissey Guides cost $10 to download.