Tourism Kamloops Launches I-Phone App and Mobile Website

Kamloops, BC: Just in time to take advantage of the new 4G I-Phone, Tourism Kamloops has launched an I-Phone App and mobile website to service a rapidly growing market niche.

Potential and arriving visitors to Kamloops will now have another way to research their trip and enhance their experience upon arrival using the new Tourism Kamloops I-Phone App and mobile website. “We’re excited to be launching our I-Phone App and mobile website.” said Tourism Kamloops’ CEO Ms. Lee Morris. “Tourism Kamloops is one of only a few destination marketing organizations in the province to have a comprehensive I-Phone App to support marketing efforts.”

Designed to provide easy and fast access to tourism-related information, the I-Phone app and mobile website connect users to a comprehensive list of accommodations, attractions, restaurants, golf courses, events, transportation, nightlife and live music venues, spas, shopping, sports and recreation, arts, culture and heritage. Each listing has the capability to connect the user directly to the supplier by telephone, email or to their website. If the mobile device being used is GPS equipped, the app will bring up the closest supplier by category, provide distances and with the augmented reality (AR) feature, use the mobile device’s camera and GPS to show in which direction the supplier is located as the user sweeps the area.

The I-Phone app is fed information from the Tourism Kamloops website so daily updates to events and other listings are automatically updated to the app every night. A slideshow on the app provides high quality images to showcase the area and each listing has the ability to display a logo and an image. Accommodations have up to 8 images that can be used to showcase their properties.

Designed to connect the user to the information they seek at between 5 – 7 seconds, the app listings contain a short description and complete contact information as provided to Tourism Kamloops by suppliers. The GPS system allows for visitors to map out routes to suppliers locations with estimated arrival times. The I-Phone App is available as a free download from the online Apple Store.

The I-Phone App is designed to be wrapped and used by most mobile devices including Blackberry and Smart Phones on a mobile site. If someone visits the Tourism Kamloops website on a mobile device, they will automatically be redirected to the new m.tourismkamloops.com mobile site. The app and mobile site are designed to provide a complete listing of suppliers that are easy to read and navigate. If mobile users still wish to visit the full website, they have a link back from the mobile site that allows them to enter www.tourismkamloops.com.

The I-Phone App also features Tourism Kamloops’ Twitter feeds, the ability to share the user’s vacation images automatically with friends, add suppliers to a favourites list and use a search function for even faster navigation on the site.

The Tourism Kamloops primary website has seen some significant improvements and enhancements recently and now features two high resolution webcams, multiple video presentations, custom downloadable Kamloops Google maps, web-based e-marketing software, flash presentations, maximum width viewing, news and weather. The events listing by category allows for locals to upload their events and once approved by Tourism Kamloops staff and depending on the nature of the event, it will appear on the City of Kamloops, Venture Kamloops and Chamber of Commerce websites as well.

For More Information:
Ms. Lee Morris CEO, Tourism Kamloops
P: 250.372.8000 C: 250.319.4247
E: lee@tourismkamloops.com

The apps can be downloaded (or seen) here:

• for iPhone / iPod Touch
• for BlackBerry – ZIP · JAD
• for .Mobi

• iPhone / iPod Touch
• BlackBerry – ZIP · JAD
• .Mobi (mobile web browsers)

Features include:

• A database of over 650 places in the Greater Lansing Guide categorized into Shopping, Things To Do, Where To Eat and Where to Stay
• Over 100 places in the Calendar of Events
• Itinerary management, Search and Nearby Me
• GPS-sensitive display and Mapping
• Twitter, Facebook and Flickr integration (iPhone and iPod Touch only)
• Augmented Reality (iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 only)

As with all Discover Anywhere Mobile clients, Greater Lansing just maintains their website and we track all changes and keep the website updated.

Click on the image to see screenshots.

If you’re interested in seeing our apps, the sidebar of every window has a panel that will show you everything we’ve done (and quite a few things currently under development).

If you like what you’re seeing and are interested in finding out more about what DAM does, have a look around the website and give us a call for a demo. We have the first, the most compelling and the best priced solution in the market for getting CVBs/DMOs mobile.

• a database of nearly 900 accommodations, dining spots, things to do and wineries in the Finger Lakes region, and hundreds of upcoming events
• everything integrated with map views, GPS location, augmented reality, and links to email, websites and direct dialing
• “share my trip” using Discover Anywhere Mobile’s social media integration, allowing direct posting of comments and photographs to Twitter, Twitpic, Facebook and Flickr
• Twitter posts from the Finger Lakes Wine County twitterati
• itinerary management, search and nearby me functions (and more)

The great thing for the Finger Lakes Wine County folks is that all they have to do is maintain their website the way they normal do, via their CMS. Discover Anywhere Mobile monitors changes to their database and automatically updates all the apps, minimizing the need for additional staff effort.

Coming Soon: “.mobi” and BlackBerry versions of the application.

If you’re interested in finding out more about what DAM does, have a look around the website and give us a call for a demo. We have the first, the most compelling and the best priced mobile solution for getting CVB/DMOs mobile in the market.

It is very important for DMOs and CVBs to realize the implications of this.

Many iPhone app companies are just traditional web developers offering what are called “wrapped apps”. A wrapped app looks – more or less – like an iPhone app, except it’s really just a shell of an application connecting to a web server over the Internet. This means that if your visitor is not connected to the Internet, they can’t use your app! And when they can connect to the Internet, there’s still very little immediacy – things take seconds to happen, rather than the instant touch-response cycle people expect from great apps.

Not only does this affect all iPod Touch users, it is also detrimental to any iPhone-using foreign visitor who will be paying very high data rates to connect to the web over the cell network. If they can’t use your app, or don’t want to use your app because it’s costing them a lot of money, they’re not going to get that great experience they’re looking for in your destination from your app.

How would using a wrapped app affect your DMO? The numbers follow…

From The Apple Blog, iPod touch Now Outselling iPhone:

At the iPad event, Steve Jobs announced 75 million iPhone OS devices had been sold to date, though whether that date was January 27 or January 1 is not known. It won’t matter either way, but let’s assume the latter. Through 2009, Apple sold 42.517 million iPhones. Subtract that number from 75 million iPhone OS devices and we get 32.483 million iPod touches.

If you’re still awake, here’s the bottom line: the rate of sales growth of the iPod touch is very likely greater than the table shows, as in double that of the iPhone. True, the period includes the holiday quarter, the best quarter for iPods, but it just doesn’t matter. The iPod touch, the stealth device for iPhone OS, will be the best-selling model for the platform in 2010, if it isn’t already, and it is.

To reiterate: there are about 32 million iPod Touches out there and a wrapped app won’t reach them when they need it most: in your destination.

From AdMob January 2010 Mobile Metrics Report:

iPod Touch users download an average of 12 apps a month, 37% more apps than iPhone and Android users.

The bottom line from the AdMob report? iPod Touch users love to use apps – but you have to make sure that they can use yours! A wrapped app – an app that depends on being connected to the Internet – does not allow them to do this.

Discover Anywhere Mobile produces native iPhone apps. All the essential data your visitors need is stored right in their iPhone / iPod Touch. This means that whether or not they’re connected to the Internet, they’re going to be able to find the things they’re looking for – and that’s why your DMO/CVB created the app in the first place, right?

All images taken from original blog posts.

Destination St. John’s is making its member’s information available on smart phones to convention delegates, tourists and residents of the province. Apps are available for Blackberries, iPhones and other internet enabled smart phones allowing users to check for places to stay, places to eat or things to do through members of DSJ. You can even check to see what the weather will be like. Best of all the app is FREE!

“This is leading technology and a great assist to the traveler in finding the many fine products and services offered by DSJ members” says Mark McCarthy Chair of Destination St. John’s.

CEO Keith Healey says, “I am excited for our members as every member will now be on the hip or in the purse of every visitor to our region; you can’t get much closer to a sale than that.”

David Janes President of Discover Anywhere Mobile, suppliers of the service says, “Discover Anywhere Mobile is very pleased to be partnering with DSJ to provide mobile applications for their visitors. With this technology, DSJ is now providing the best apps available worldwide for creating amazing tourist and conventioneer experiences.”

John Feltham VP of Technology with Applecore Interactive, developers of DSJ’s web presence says,” Destination St. John’s has assisted greatly with trip planning by providing visitors a real taste of their destination by displaying locations on an easy to use mobile map application.”

For those devices that have GPS capability it will tell you how far you are from your desired location and again, if you have the service, it will even tell you how to get there.

On your smart device go to http://m.destinationstjohns.com/ download the app and start visiting DSJ members! Once there you can read about the member and with another click visit their website directly.

For more information contact:

Keith Healey, CEO
Destination St. John’s
709-739-8898
khealey@destinationstjohns.com

If you’re interested in finding out more about what DAM does, have a look around the website and give us a call for a demo. We have the first, the most compelling and the best priced mobile solution for getting CVB/DMOs mobile in the market.

• no tabs on the bottom of the screen
• navigation is entirely “hierarchical” from the front page
• the front page can be anything that can be rendered in HTML: on the iPhone, this is saying a lot, as basically HTML can do almost anything
• the front page sideways scrolls to reveal more information about your destination or company

Click on the image to see a full size version – this is going to be our new Discover Anywhere Civil War app.

The existing tabbed version will remain available as an option, of course.

• Full CBC Podcast (with notes, etc)
• Our segment (as an MP3, about 2:15 long)

Thank you very much to Nora and the gang at Spark!

• an icon and launcher right on your tourists/customer’s BlackBerry screen
• a hybrid web/device model, to provide a “best of both worlds” model; in particular, to provide a full featured app for the BlackBerry user while minimizing the impact of the app on one’s limited BlackBerry resources
• full geo-location features (closest to me, order by distance)

A few features seen on the iPhone version are not here, but are likely to be added soon:

• show multiple locations on map
• favorites
• routes

Some things are never going to come unfortunately:

• augmented reality

We’re pretty happy with this app. It should run on any 4.2 or later BlackBerry, but will look great on 4.6 or later.  In case you didn’t know, our “base” offering covers all the apps we do – iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry and mobile web browsers, so it’s not a matter of picking one or the other.

Here’s our screenshots – click for a bigger picture.

Home Screen

Listings by Theme

Events

Listing Details

Nearby (Me)

Nearby Another Listing