(1888PressRelease)
December 24, 2007 - As GPS devices become more prevalent and the technology comes of age, it is beginning to redefine certain industries. One such industry that is not afraid to try something new is tourism. Using GPS, a traditional tour led by a human guide can be replaced with an automated mechanism that routes the user to a location and then presents media information about the location.
In the past few years, the number of GPS devices sold in the world has skyrocketed. With so many people already owning a GPS device, the potential audience of GPS tourism is huge. GPS manufacturers are already taking advantage of this new innovation. Garmin recently unveiled the Garmin TourGuide format on most of their automotive GPS product lines. The Garmin TourGuide format allows audio, images, and text to be displayed to users when they are at a certain geographic location.
Other companies are also beginning to enter the GPS tour arena. Geovative Solutions allows users to create GPS tours through their web site located at http://www.geovative.com. Using the GeoTours platform, users can sign up for a free account and then create a GPS tour using an easy-to-use web site. Once a user has created a GPS tour, it can then be shared with other users across the globe or downloaded to a GPS device. Currently, tours can be downloaded to Garmin GPS units using the aforementioned TourGuide format, smartphones and PDAs running Geovative’s GeoTours Mobile product, iPods or MP3 players, and more.
“We created Geovative Solutions to provide users with a simple way to create their own GPS tours,” said Scott Rock, co-founder of Geovative Solutions. “Since the site was created in 2006, we now have thousands of users that have signed up and thousands of tours that have been created. We’ve seen some very innovative uses of GPS tours using our technology, such as helicopter tours, real estate tours, and national park tours.”
Geovative Solutions also recently released GeoTours Premium, an upgrade to the free version of GeoTours Web. GeoTours Premium was designed especially for destination marketing organizations (DMOs). “It’s basically for any organization that wants to attract people to their location in a unique fashion,” says Rock. Using GeoTours Premium, DMOs can create a widget to display a GPS tour directly on their web site and allow users to download the tour to any one of the supported devices. The tours are fully customizable and allow DMOs to include their own colors and logo, making the tour look as if it were a part of the DMO’s web site. GeoTours Premium also offers many other additional features, such as Mini-Sites and detailed usage reports. A Mini-Site is a small, fully-customizable web site that showcases the DMO’s GPS tours. With the detailed reports, DMOs can see important statistics and charts detailing how users are viewing and interacting with their GPS tours.
“GeoTours Premium has been a hit with DMOs looking to embrace technology,” says Rock. “We’ve had a number of forward-thinking Convention and Visitors Bureaus that have expressed interest in it. Our work doesn’t stop here, however. We are constantly working to add new features and refine existing ones. We want GeoTours Premium to be the ultimate platform for DMOs looking to use GPS tourism.”
With GPS devices flying off the shelves this holiday season, the audience for GPS tours is increasing exponentially. Geovative Solutions hopes this trend continues and that DMOs will continue to see the benefit in using GPS tourism to promote their organizations.
About Geovative Solutions
Geovative Solutions has been providing innovative location-based services and software since 2006. Their flagship product, GeoTours Web, allows users to create GPS tours that contain images, audio, and text associated with geographic locations. Users can then download tours to a number of GPS and non-GPS devices. They recently released the GeoTours Premium platform which allows users to showcase GPS tours on their own web site. More information can be found on their web site located at http://www.geovative.com.
###
