After successfully launching a line of Family Friendly Tours in multiple cities across Europe, Withlocals now looks into the future of travel. Together with the Greenhouse Group Labs, the company discloses today the launch of its first AR-enabled Tour!
The 2 companies — both committed to Innovation — have developed an app, Walk with Wilo, which adds an extra storyline to the family tours the company currently offers in Amsterdam. The potential of this powerful combination of human factor & technology promises to revolutionize the future of experiential travel. It is also the first combination of Tourism, Education, Games and AR in the industry.
See a glimpse of the app at https://www.withlocals.com/ar/
The soft launch happened 2 weeks ago. Since then the pilot has proved successful: Parents and children enjoy the hidden gems of the city, and the local host – equipped with the app – turns the city into a 5- dimensions-adventure for the whole family!
Withlocals is looking into the expansion and scalability potential of the app. Using geofencing, the game can be played by anyone visiting Amsterdam, with a special focus on families traveling with young children. But it has the potential to be adapted to many different locations, around the city and across the world, and to many different age groups!
Over the span of five months Withlocals worked together with the talented minds of Labs to develop the functionalities and the storyline, and adapt the app to the needs of both guests and hosts. Walk with Wilo offers a glimpse of how the tourism industry could benefit from AR.
“Nowadays it is important to experiment with new technologies and figure out how they could improve our tours and travelers’ experiences. We feel that AR has the potential to help our local hosts deliver a different layer of information and add extra fun for families that choose to visit a city with Withlocals” – Matthijs Keij – Withlocals CEO
But the company’s goal is not to move solely to AR tours. The focus is still on the unique value generated by the connection between travellers and locals.
“The app is fun and easy to use, but definitely it would not be the same without our new friend Efi! We learnt a lot, saw totally new corners of the city and the kids had so much fun!” – Janne – Withlocals guest with her family in Amsterdam
THE FUTURE
Withlocals is already revolutionizing the way travelers experience places. The exploration of the AR potential is only an example of Withlocals’ transformative power hitting the Travel industry. At present, the focus is on adding an extra dimension of entertainment & learning to the family friendly experiences of all parents visiting cities with their kids, starting with Amsterdam.
The natural next step? Test the unique combination of the human factor (i.e. knowledgeable locals with stories and passions to share) and AR with adults, too.
The potential is there and the recipe cannot fail. On your next trip to Rome why not joining a local historian and their friend Julius Caesar? Visit together the ruins of the Forum while learning about the secret conspiracies of the Senate, or watching together gladiators battling in the Colosseum! Traveling to Paris? See how the first croissant was re-invented in Paris with an expert Parisian chef and be welcomed by the Austrian officer that founded the Viennese bakery that inspired all Parisian patisseries from 1839 onwards to bake croissants! Actually… Why don’t you walk in?
GOT NEWS? click here
Google News, Bing News, Yahoo News, 200+ publications
ABOUT WITHLOCALS
One mission: Connecting people and cultures through travel.
One vision: no mass tourism, but personalized traveling at scale.
This is Withlocals, the online marketplace for private and personalized tours & activities bringing together locals and travelers thanks to authentic and unique travel experiences.
The market for personalized tours & activities is growing exponentially: Withlocals is one of the fastest-growing startups in the business, witnessing a 15 to 20% month-to-month growth.
ABOUT GREENHOUSE GROUP INNOVATION LABS
The innovative heart of Greenhouse Group. At Labs, explorative research is done on various topics to prepare the Greenhouse Group for the next technological breakthrough – including AI, Augmented Reality, Blockchain and Conversational Marketing. Together with partnering companies, project teams consisting of (graduate) students work on these new trends and technologies. The team developing the app is among those students. All with different studies and backgrounds, they created an AR application that could help Withlocals exploring the potential of this technology.
ABOUT THE APP
The app features Wilo, a friendly robot that needs the help of the players to rescue his friends. It is now available for free download on Google playstore for Android devices running OREO.
Outside the Amsterdam region the app can be downloaded until Sunday, the 19th of August, 2018. But thanks to the “Quick Play” function in the app menu – see visual in the next page – you will be able to play the mini games everywhere! Because we want everybody to get a feeling of how the AR app works. Want to experience Walk With Wilo in its full glory? Then you better go to Amsterdam and start exploring! More info about the games and characters can be found at: withlocals.com/AR/.
