Audio Tours on mobile devices offer an excellent way to reach your visitors, customers and clients.
Q Media has worked with clients in producing their tours to be provided on cell phones and they have become a great way for facilities to offer a value-added audio tour without the expense, staffing or general maintenance of audio guides. Tours can be recorded and uploaded easily to a cell phone tour provider’s server and visitors use their own cell phones to access the tour and in most cases cell phone tours aren’t implemented to generate revenue but are offered as a value-added service. But mobile devices with internet access capability offer another option for a cell phone based tour. We call these types of tours WebTour Audio Tours. Rather than a tour being uploaded to a provider’s cell phone service an audio tour can be added to a facility’s webpage and the tour is accessed by patrons who have internet access on their mobile devices. There are many advantages to this:
After your tour is produced it is distributed from your website. A tour interface is designed into your website that has the tour stop locations and audio mp3 files. Your visitors are informed that the tour is posted on your website are instructed to go there on their mobile device to access the tour information. The tour files can be also downloaded directly from your site by visitors prior to arriving who would rather use their own mp3 players so a WebTour Audio Tour can also be repurposed as a Downloadable Tour.

Costs are decreased because there isn’t a tour hosting service to pay for. Since the tour is located on your website once it is uploaded there aren’t any other additional ‘middle-man’ costs in providing the tour.

WebTour Audio Tours sound better than cell phone tours provided through a cell phone tour service. Because the tour is listened to after it has been downloaded to the visitor’s mobile device it doesn’t have the real-time sonic restrictions that cell phone tours have with limited, lower quality bandwidth.

Video and pictures can also be easily added to your tour. By placing your audio tour on your website as a download to mobile devices you can have these elements added without the restraints of the limited broadcast bandwidth of cell phones.

Poor coverage may be compensated for by incorporating a Wi-Fi network. Some mobile devices also can access Wi-Fi networks (like the Ipod Touch). If your facility doesn’t have good cell coverage then in some cases incorporating a Wi-Fi network will allow your visitors to access the tour even if there is limited cell coverage.
So how can Q Media help? Mobile devices can be a great way to get your tour to your visitors and here at Q Media we are firm believers that a well-produced tour will be a wonderful experience no matter what the hardware. But the key is well-produced and producing great audio tours is what we do. We welcome the opportunity to produce your tour so please contact us to tell us about your project, find out more about Q Media producing your tour, and implementing your WebTour Audio Tour. Contact us at solutions@qmediaproductions.com and let us show you how a Q Media produced WebTour Audio Tour can be the most cost-effective and best way to get a value-added audio tour to your visitors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"We also appreciate

the effort you made

to keep us informed,

involved, and in the

drivers seat

throughout the

production and

post-production

phases."

Jeff Dykhouse Interpretation Supervisor

Mackinac State Historic Parks