Travel technology company, Tourism Radio, that has been regularly featured on Bandwidth Blog, has turned to popular crowdfunding website Kickstarter to finance the launch of what it refers to as, “œthe next big thing in travel“.
The Cape Town-based operation, founded in 2005 by serial entrepreneur Mark Allewell, produces location-aware audio travel guides. Allewell says he‘s now firmly set his sights on getting those guides onto Google Glass, “œWe believe that Glass will set the precedent for augmented reality platforms of the near future. With eight years of travel technology experience behind us, Tourism Radio has proven itself able to adapt to new technologies, and Glass is the next evolutionary step from the mobile smart phone.“
Tourism Radio‘s audio guide stable comes in various forms, including an OEM device distributed via rental cars, iOS and Android apps and a soon-to-be-launched application for the Renault R-Link, in-car multimedia system. The company produces guides to locations across the world and offers the travel applications as White Label solutions for Destination Marketing Organisations and corporate entities, including the likes of Land Rover, Diners Club and South African Tourism, amongst others.
Allewell says they‘re hoping to raise in excess of £35,000 (R530,000) to fund the project with an expected delivery in April, 2014. Backers who pledge funds towards Tourism Radio‘s goal will be rewarded with anything from one free travel guide, to the chance to include eight of their own points of interest in a particular city guide and have it translated into any language.
Of the estimated deadline Allewell says, “œWe‘ve consistently been able to deliver on a number of large agreements we‘ve had in the past few years, including with travel guide publisher, Frommer‘s Unlimited, and French automaker, Renault. Should we be able to raise the funding, I have no doubt Tourism Radio‘s Google Glass travel guides will set the bar for all our predecessors.“
Take a look at Tourism Radio‘s Google Glass featured on Kickstarter here.
