Better connections by mobile

HISTORY, UP CLOSE: Bob Burke, founder and executive director of the Providence Independence Trail, has been happy to transition from a phone-based self-guided tour to an app that uses GPS to help connect tourists to the historic locations throughout the Capital City. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
HISTORY, UP CLOSE: Bob Burke, founder and executive director of the Providence Independence Trail, has been happy to transition from a phone-based self-guided tour to an app that uses GPS to help connect tourists to the historic locations throughout the Capital City. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

As the 2016 summer kicks into high gear, some Rhode Island tourism hotspots have gone mobile, with a smartphone that is, driven by the convenience and low cost of using the ubiquitous tool.

For the Providence Independence Trail, headed by founder and Executive Director Bob Burke, moving to app-based technology was a necessary update. Burke explained the former system was a dial-by-hand program for the self-guided history tour developed in 2007. It required users to punch in a code to determine their location on the route.

Joking, Burke said: “It’s almost like fine wine – technology is much better after it has aged,” regarding his decision to wait.

The app is free to download with no in-app purchases, and as users move along the trail, GPS tracking alerts them to points of interest.

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Rachel Van Metre, a Providence Independence Trail intern, has been working on the implementation of the app and is excited by how it allows users to interact with the trail in their own way.

“Using this software makes the trail more accessible in that you don’t really have to follow the line from one to 43, you can go back and forth,” she said.

The app also will change the way users interact with the city. Burke and Van Metre have uploaded audio, text and 360-degree views of interior spaces of locations on the trail. The addition of this content means visitors walking the trail at night or on weekends, when many landmarks are not open to the public, can still have the same experience as those who visit during peak hours.

Burke knows Providence hosts visitors from all over the globe, but the moments he looks back on happily are when locals use the trail. He recalled seeing a father and his three young sons crowded around their phone staring up at the Industrial Trust building – also known as the Superman building – listening to the recording about the rumored blimp station at the top of the 26-story tower. Burke introduced himself, and the father explained the boys were on vacation from school and all he could afford to do with them was get on the bus and take them downtown.

“No one should be barred from accessing these stories because of money,” he said. “We create the impression in our children that they live in a historical drought and they must travel to Boston, Plymouth or Sturbridge to find the oasis of history. Nothing can be further from the truth.”

John Rodman, director of museum experience at the Preservation Society of Newport County, is also keenly aware of the significance of touring Newport’s mansions, especially for locals.

According to the society’s records, 20-21 percent of all Rhode Islanders come to the mansions once every two years. Rhode Islanders are second in attendance only to Massachusetts, and that’s only because the commonwealth has more people, Rodman noted, laughing.

The society’s transition from audio tours delivered by society-provided devices to an app for its tours occurred with the help of benefactor Snehal Shah, an Indian-born Rhode Island businessman. His children chose the society to receive a $100,000 investment toward the creation of an app that deliveres the audio tour via smartphone because they believed the experience was intricate and interesting, explained Rodman.

“When Shah came forward, it was the perfect opportunity,” said Rodman.

The society’s app is also free, without in-app purchases. “Nickel-and-diming people is not a good practice in any business these days, let alone tourism,” he said.

An app, Rodman said, conveniently offers the society’s renowned Rosecliff, Marble House and The Breakers audio tours as well as a map, directories and text for those visitors who are hearing impaired. Since 1999, more than 750,000 people each year, said Rodman, have listened to the society’s tours.

Whereas the Providence Independence Trail and the Preservation Society of Newport County waited to see if the app bubble would burst, Scott Pickering and Explore Bristol jumped at the opportunity in 2013.

Pickering, East Bay Newspapers’ general manager, served as the app’s project manager, coordinating the needs of businesses represented in the Explore Bristol initiative.

The app, he explained, is free, GPS-enabled and works best in conjunction with the 60-page Explore Bristol printed brochure, as a tool to plan a visit.

Pickering believes the app is a success, but “it’s not alone an answer to anything. It’s not we got an app, now welcome the masses. It’s a tool and it’s a successful tool,” he said.

Pickering advises those looking to launch an app that the beginning is easy, but keeping the content up to date is the difficult aftermath.

He added: “It’s not enough to create it, flip the switch and leave it. You have to stay engaged … make sure you have someone in place who can constantly be hands-on with it, tinkering.” •

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