A SMARTPHONE application enabling visitors to Dublin to simply point their phone at a tourist attraction to get information about it was unveiled yesterday.
Dublin Tourism’s Visit Dublin app which will run on smartphones – a phone with internet and computing capability – will initially feature 1,400 points of interest in the capital. The tourism body says Dublin is the world’s first city to provide the service.
Visitors who have downloaded the app can use their phone as a compass to guide them to attractions, restaurants and hotels. They can also read or listen to data about their destination, check opening times and receive special discounts.
The application is part of a €10 million investment in a digital strategy to promote Dublin which is hoped will deliver 12 million visitors to the capital by 2015.
“With 3.8 million people visiting Dublin last year,” Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism Mary Hanafin said yesterday, “ information at their fingertips is what they want.”
Ms Hanafin said that while the mobile travel guide showed information about government buildings, she said she “sincerely hoped it could not show what was going on inside”.
Dublin Tourism chief executive Frank Magee said at the launch: “There’s one thing every visitor to our city has and that’s a finite amount of time . . . we want them to see as much as possible . . . The application delivers Dublin in the palm of their hand.”
Mr Magee said as images and information were stored locally on the phone, roaming charges would only be incurred if users opted for the daily alerts that were part of the service.
Writer Fionn Davenport, who spoke at the event, said while he did not think it meant an end to guide books “it’s the way we will travel in the future”.
Dublin Tourism says it received eight million visits to visitdublin.com last year. It also runs campaigns on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr.
Mr Magee said: “Our figures indicate that Dublin’s year-end performance will exceed original expectations with increases in both visitors and occupancy levels”.
He said the opening of the convention centre “will provide a sustained bounce for visitor numbers”.
The Visit Dublin application was developed by Irish company GeoGuides, which employs nine people in Wicklow. It costs €2.99 and is available from the Apple App Store and Android Market.
