Posts Tagged ‘Interactive Travel Guide’

KwaZulu Natal Videos

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

SmartGuide recently developed a lot of new videos of KwaZulu Natal that have been loaded onto our Interactive Travel Guide:

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.

<object width=”560″ height=”340″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/73_6pSlB8wU&hl=en_GB&fs=1&”></param><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”></param><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/73_6pSlB8wU&hl=en_GB&fs=1&” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”560″ height=”340″></embed></object>
  • Share/Bookmark

Destination, Location and then Hotel

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Below is an extract from an article by Neil Salerno which discusses the decision process a person looking to book a hotel goes through. The decision of where to stay is secondary to that of the destination and location so accommodation establishments need to first help sell the destination and location before a traveler will book at their establishment. The SmartGuide Interactive Travel Guide that can be embedded into websites, emailed, distributed via social media is essentially an interactive destination guide loaded with the necessary information and rich media to help sell you destination.

“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?”

  • Share/Bookmark

Birchwood Hotel and Conference Centre

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

The Birchwood Hotel and Conference Centre is situated very close to the OR Tambo Airport in Johannesburg and the perfect place to hold a national conference as it allows you to avoid the notoriously bad Johannesburg traffic.

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.

Interactive Map of Birchwood Hotel and Conference Center Johannesburg

For more example of the Interactive Travel Guide see below:

Interactive Map of Pafuri Lodge

Interactive Knysna Map

WB3PJVEQ65GR

  • Share/Bookmark

Pafuri Camp in Kruger Park

Friday, February 12th, 2010

Wilderness Safari’s Pafuri Camp in the north of the Kruger National Park provides an amazing experience in a truly unique environment. SmartGuide has loaded their content into their Interactive Travel Guide to provide you with a better spatial understanding of the area together with content embedded into it to wet your appetite.

Parfuri Camp on Interactive Map of Kruger Park

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.

  • Share/Bookmark

Emailing the Interactive Travel Guide

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

The SmartGuide Interactive Travel Guide can be easily distributed via your emails. Once you have loaded your content (text, images, virtual tours, videos, etc) into the interactive map it acts as an excellent interactive e-brochure that is able to help sell your product, your location and the destination.

It takes one click to activate the map which provides the user with a vast amount of interactive content that is easily navigated.

By linking the Interactive Travel Guide to your emails you are distributing a powerful marketing tool that will help educate your potential clients about your product and the surroundings.

Here are a few examples of how to link the Interactive Travel Guide to your emails:

1. Link it to your Personal Email Signature
Link SmartGuide's Interactive Map to your Personal Email Signature
Link SmartGuide's Interactive Map to your Personal Email Signature

2. Insert a link in the body of your Email
How to insert a link in the body of your Email

With the Interactive Travel Guide linked to your emails you are marketing every time you send an email or the email is forwarded

If you found this article interesting we recommend you to look at the following posts.

-          Interactive Travel Guide in Facebook

-          Importance of Rich Content

  • Share/Bookmark

Interactive Travel Guide embedded into Facebook

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

Facebook has become a valuable element in many tourism related businesses’ marketing efforts. The SmartGuide Interactive Travel Guide can be embedded into Facebook allowing visitors to a Facebook page the ability to interact with the interactive map. This essentially allows you to place an interactive destination guide that will help sell the destination or product within the destination.

SmartGuide Interactive Map on Facebook

SmartGuide Interactive Map on Facebook

To view the embedded interactive map in Facebook click on the following link: Interactive Travel Guide on Facebook.

To find out how you can use this virtual guide of Africa in Facebook contact Paul from SmartGuide.

  • Share/Bookmark

Garden Route Content Update

Monday, February 1st, 2010

SmartGuide recently spent time along the Garden Route gathering information. We took some 360 degree virtual tours (360 degree images) to place on our Interactive Travel Guide courtesy of Virtual Africa’s new distribution platform that allows you to distribute your virtual tours to a wider audience.

Knysna: The Hippo Beach

Plettenberg Bay: The Viewpoint 1

They say a picture is worth a 1000 words well then…

What then is a video with words worth or a virtual worth?

As the Internet becomes a more visual tool and people take a ‘show me don’t tell me’ approach, the use of rich media is becoming more and more important in the competitive online tourism arena.

So don’t hang around – invest in rich content now. And if you do not know where to start contact us and we will give you the options.

  • Share/Bookmark

Videos of Knysna

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

Check out the travel videos that SmartGuide has developed for Knysna:

These are also included in SmartGuide’s Interactive Travel Guide of Knysna

  • Share/Bookmark

Cape Whale Coast Integrates Interactive Travel Guide

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

The Cape Whale Coast has integrated the Smartguide Interactive Tourist Map into their website  http://www.whalecoast.info This area includes the well know towns of:

Pringle Bay
Betties Bay
Kleinmond
Hermanus
Stanford
Gansbaai

To view the interactive map of any of the towns below click on them.

  • Share/Bookmark

The best Calamari in South Africa

Friday, October 16th, 2009

Situated in an old container overlooking the Kleinmond harbor is the Shellfish Bar. Here you will find the best calamari South Africa has to offer. Somehow the food always tastes better when you have beautiful surroundings, a gentle sea breeze in your face and a crispy glass (or 2) of a good South African wine.
Look at the interactive Kleinmond map to find out more about this gem and the Kleinmond harbor.

Watch a video about Kleinmond harbor – Youtube

  • Share/Bookmark