Virtual Itinerary – Welcome Page

Welcomes the client to their personal virtual itinerary

Virtual Itinerary – Trip Overview

Gives the client a spatial understanding of the trip, highlighting destinations and showing the transport between them

Virtual Itinerary – Day by Day View

The client can get detailed information on what they will be doing each day

Virtual Itinerary: Zoomed into Hotel

They can zoom right into their hotel and see the facilities they offer

Virtual Itinerary – Content Display

Each icon can contain a lot of content – text, audio, images, videos, virtual tours, etc

Video is the content that is in the most demand and tourism products must look seriously at developing internet friendly videos that can be distributed over the Internet (after all You Tube is the 2nd largest search engine after Google).

Video is powerful as you are able to convey facts (audio or writing) together with supplying emotive images to stimulate the viewer’s desire to travel.

Developing videos is traditionally expensive however it does not have to be. If you view the video below you will see that it comprises of photos and an audio track but achieves the same goal as a video with video footage. Most tourism products have plenty of images and therefore these videos can be developed at a fraction of the cost of a traditional video.

If you are interested in affordable, internet friendly videos please feel free to contact us at SmartGuide.

Note: These videos are inserted into the SmartGuide Interactive Map and Virtual Itinerary

The technology will be licensed to tour operators who will then be able to create Personalised, Scheduled and Sample Virtual Itineraries which can be used to sell the recommended itineraries.

The Virtual Itinerary is essentially an itinerary overlaid on the SmartGuide Interactive Map which is loaded with 13 000 icons each with the ability to hold a large amount of rich content (text, audio, images, videos, You Tube and Flickr links and Virtual Tours). This gives the client an understanding of the itinerary that a document and images cannot.

This technology is very powerful and promises to change the way tour operators display their itineraries. For a sneak peak view this demo video

The Panorama Route is one of the most beautiful and popular travel destinations in South Africa. It’s best known for its cultural heritage and its dramatic landscapes. The route includs the world famous Blyde River Canyon,  Bourke’s Luck Potholes and God’s Window and a lot of breathtaking waterfalls.

Panorama Route Video

The Panorama Route takes you to all the highlights of the Mpumalanga Drakensberg, winding along dramatic passes, past beautiful waterfalls, montane forests, spectacular vistas, the world’s largest green canyon, God’s Window, a living museum town, some lucky potholes and plenty of adventure.

Blyde River Canyon Video

The Blyde River Canyon is with its length of 25km the 3^rd largest canyon in the world. The Canyon’s most well known features are the Three Rondavels, three peaks which look like traditional African huts and the rather strange Kadishi Tufa waterfall, which grows rather than erodes the rock.

Panorama Waterfalls Video

The Panorama Route has a number of breathtaking waterfalls. The big ones are Berlin Falls, Lisbon Falls, Lone Creek, Bridal Veil falls and Mac Mac Falls.

If you would like to see more videos about Mpumalange and the Panorama Route, please browse onto our YouTube Channel.

KwaZulu Natal Video – Interactive Travel Guide

From the towering magnificence of the Ukahlamba-Drakensberg Mountain range to miles and miles of coastline with sea temperatures that offer year round swimming; from the Lake St Lucia World Heritage Site to the varied and challenging golf courses, and the cultural richness of the Zulus and South Africa’s Indian population; from the battlefields of the Anglo Zulu and Anglo Boer Wars to world renowned conservation parks of Zululand KwaZulu Natal has something to offer everybody.

Aliwal Shoal Diving Video – Interactive Travel Guide

The water on KwaZulu Natal’s South Coast is warm all year round, home to the most wondrous kingdom of the deep and has some of the world’s most exciting dive spots to offer.
Such as the Aliwal Shoal, a fossilized sand dune quoted as being one of the top ten dive sites in the World, where you can dive with Ragged Tooth Sharks, Tiger Sharks and Manta Rays, Dolphins and Whale Sharks. Just eight kilometers of Shelly Beach is Protea Banks, a deep dive full of caves, pinnacles, ridges and amphitheatres and densely populated with colorful soft corals, sea weed and reef fish.

Blue Flag Beaches Video – Interactive Travel Guide

The Blue Flag certification is an international award for beaches that maintain cleanliness, security and most importantly environmental awareness. To date 20 Blue Flag beaches on South Africa’s coastline have earned this international award. Five of which are on the South Coast: Unvongo, Hibberdene, Ramsgate, Marina Beach, Lucien Beach and with two pilot Blue Flag beaches Margate and Scottsburgh.

Please browse onto our YouTube Channel to see more KwaZulu Natal and South Africa video.

“I referred to some hotel sites as nothing more than online brochures. A hotel online brochure is a site, which only covers information about the hotel itself; that makes it dead-in-the-water from a search standpoint. Someone who designs such a site, doesn’t understand how travelers use the Internet to find and book rooms.

Few people choose a hotel before choosing a destination. The fact is that most travelers first select a destination, attraction, or activity, then select a hotel within the scope of that destination. Hotel online brochures mention little, if any, information about the destination features nearby. Yet, this is the most important search findability information on your site. Selecting a hotel is most often the “second” decision made by travelers.”

To view the full article – “Let’s Be Honest, Does Your Hotel’s Website Suck?”

The survey suggests that consumers are showing an appetite for more interactive visuals in their shopping and purchase paths. Nearly three in five online travelers (59 percent) say 360 degree virtual tours would be “useful” or “very useful” in helping them select a hotel that matches their preferences and expectations, while nearly half (48%) believe a short video showing a property’s features and amenities would be “useful” or “very useful.”

“We know price and location play the most important role in consumer shopping behavior and decision making, but we were particularly intrigued to see that factors such as loyalty programs and hotel brand were rated so far behind visuals in importance by online travelers,” said Paolo Boni, president and CEO of VFM Interactive, which commissioned the study. “With still image and rich media visuals rated so highly on consumers’ importance and usefulness scales for influencing their selection of one hotel over another online, hoteliers should re-evaluate their online presence – particularly how they are being represented through online travel agency sites — to address the lower consumer satisfaction visuals found online today.

Please click here to view the whole article.

Click on the following link to view some of our 360 degree virtual tours that we embedded into Facebook: www.facebook.com/smartguide

SmartGuide has just loaded the Birchwood’s content into their Interactive Travel Guide. This provides a wonderful spatial understanding of the complex and its location and the interactive map can now used as a virtual hotel guide. Click here or on the image below to activate the Birchwood interactive Map.

For more example of the Interactive Travel Guide see below:

Interactive Map of Pafuri Lodge

Interactive Knysna Map

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Importance of the Internet
The internet is the most important marketing channel in tourism; it is flexible, quick, engaging and allows your content to be distributed cheaply and widely to a massive audience.

Facts:

-          Tourism is the largest selling commodity on the Internet
-          more than 50% of the tourism spend in Europe is done over the Internet
-          More than 70% of travelers start their travel plans on the Internet
-          The Internet is becoming a more visual medium (Show, don’t Tell)

The Internet is continually becoming a more important business channel – if you do not have a plan to market to this channel then you need to develop one quickly.

Importance of Rich Media

The old saying ‘ Content is King ‘ is even more appropriate on the Internet. With a massive selection available on the Internet, content must be interesting, engaging and preferably interactive otherwise the visitor will simply move on.

Tourism organizations / businesses should invest the following forms of multimedia or content:-

• Text – good at relaying basic info
• Audio – excellent for stories, interviews , etc
• Images – attract attention, emotive & provide credibility
• Video – powerful as it conveys images and info quickly and effectively
• Virtual Tours – brilliant at providing detailed information and credibility
• Interactive Maps – provides spatial understanding of location/ destination

”Content is not just king, it is the emperor of all things digital.” Rupert Murdoch

Importance of Distribution

You can have the best content however if it is not well distributed then it only has limited use and will not generate business. You should develop a comprehensive plan for distributing you content that involves the following channels:-

-          Website
-          Blogs (yours and other peoples)
-          E-Newsletters
-          Social Media
-          Emails
-          Documents
-          Via Agents

So to successfully market on the Internet you need to accept the growing importance of this channel and adapt your marketing strategy accordingly. Most importantly develop great content and have a plan to distribute it – this way you will get a great return on investment on the development of your content.

Good luck and go for it – the longer you wait the further you get left behind!!

Click here to access the online version on SmartGuide's Interactive Map.

The SmartGuide interactive tourist map provides the property with an interactive e-Brochure in which the content is easily navigated, accessible and able to engage the users. Most importantly this interactive map can be embedded into websites, attached to emails, inserted into blogs and most importantly easily distributed via social media. In short, it is e-Brochure that can engage the user and can be distributed very widely to help sell your property.

If you would like your product’s contents uploaded into the interactive map please contact SmartGuide.