Gauteng Tourism’s first mobile app has reached the number one spot as South Africa’s favourite free travel app download.
Perfect for the independent traveller, the Gauteng Travel Guide is fully produced by the Gauteng Tourism Authority and Tourism Radio®, and encourages all travellers, domestic or international, to explore the province. Travellers go where they like and the guide goes with them, drawing their attention to attractions, venues and activities, no matter where they are.
Tourism Radio CEO and founder Mark Allewell says, “As a proudly South African company, we are ecstatic about the success of the Gauteng Travel Guide, which is powered by Tourism Radio’s patent pending technology.” He adds, “This is the first time a Tourism Radio app has become the number one free travel app in South Africa. The Gauteng Travel Guide has raised the bar for all our future endeavours, due to the relatively short time that it took to achieve this coveted milestone. Tourism Radio looks forward to providing travelers in Gauteng with quality, locally-produced audio and text information on their iPhone and Android mobile devices.”
A travel companion for exploring Gauteng, the Gauteng Travel Guide consists of detailed travel information of more than 350 Points of Interest (POIs) across all Gauteng’s regions. This includes approximately an hour of audio content on some of the province’s most popular tourist attractions. Get inspired by the many museums, nature reserves, art galleries and cultures of Johannesburg, Pretoria and surrounds. Discover some of the best shops, restaurants, adventure and leisure activities; as well as a comprehensive list of entertainment, accommodation and conference venues. A number of attractions have also been included to surprise and delight even the most well-travelled residents of Gauteng.
Dawn Robertson, CEO of Gauteng Tourism says that the organisation has made a strategic decision to promote the diversity of the province’s attractions and experiences on the mobile platform in line with the staggering local and international growth achieved and projected for mobile. “With 1.08 billion smart phones in use globally, mobile penetration to reach 96% globally by end 2013 and mobile set to overtake fixed Internet access by 2014, mobile cannot be ignored by destinations and travel products as a premium marketing and communications tool.”
Gauteng Tourism’s e-marketing manager, Kay Robertson, said that the latest Distimo figures for South Africa reveals that the Gauteng Travel Guide has outperformed the mobile app download distribution for iPhones, at 71.43%, compared to the benchmark of 0.37%.
She continued “Even though the app has reached downloads in over 40 countries, data shows that it is the domestic market that is overwhelmingly interested in the Gauteng Travel Guide with 83% downloads recorded in South Africa. This echoes Gauteng Tourism’s focus on the domestic market in the wake of the global economic crisis, which has resulted in the launch of the popular ‘I’m a GeePee’ discount programme. Users of the Gauteng Travel Guide will find convenient pointers to and information on the attractions featuring GeePee specials.” She added that the Gauteng Travel Guide will be maintained and expanded to include even more attractions as the province is rich with a wide range of quality experiences across all themes of interest.
The Gauteng Travel Guide’s features are:
• Set up the Gauteng Travel Guide once online and the map becomes available to use completely offline – NO data costs while you’re out exploring!
• High quality audio information, voiced by South Africans
• 350+ POIs across Gauteng’s 5 regions, including the cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria
• Detailed information about each POI, including contact details, opening hours, prices, GeePee discounts and links for more information
• Built-in search and category filter functionality, as well as detailed maps of areas around Gauteng for ease of travel
