Mother City entreprenuer takes homegrown invention global
Mother City entrepreneur Mark Allewell is creating waves in the international tourism marketplace in terms of a rather nifty two homegrown inventions that were well timed with the rise of the digital traveller.
“This has truly been the proverbial dream come true!” enthuses Allewell. “Shortly after Tourism Radio's® 2005 launch, Discovery Channel coverage led to a German venture capitalist consortium sharing my vision – and the company has gone from strength to strength since then.”
Tourism Radio® is already well entrenched in the New Zealand and Namibian marketplace as well as in the Western Cape (in Cape Town, Cape Winelands and Garden Route). Allewell has now shifted his attentions to global expansion, with Australia his first port of call.
Allewell’s organisation continues to introduce cutting edge technology for the digital traveller, to date via Tourism Radio and Hummba.com.
Tourism Radio®, for its part, empowers the user to embark on self-drive tours with an on-board virtual tourist guide that can be turned on or off with a simple switch of the radio knob. Its Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) driven information station aims to make travelling a more fulfilling experience for the self-drive visitor. GPS technology transmits information about the driver’s surroundings as they travel through a particular Tourism Radio zone. Three types of information are aired: regional location content, informative radio shows, and a unique Intellipoint system that draws the driver’s attention to prominent landmarks via anecdotes and historical facts.
The Tourism Radio® device can be hired at NO CHARGE via ordering online at www.tourismradio.co.za then fitted, also at NO CHARGE, at their Woodstock offices during regular week-day office hours. The device can also be fitted at NO CHARGE to visitors hiring cars in Cape Town and its immediate surrounds from the following car rental companies: First Car Rental; Hertz Car Rental; and Scenic Car Hire.
Hummba.com, for its part, is a mobile application that works on iPhone and Android handsets. It allows one to download travel audio guides in addition to sharing experiences via geo-tagged photographs, routes and travel posts.
Making reference to the rise of the digital traveller, Allewell sketches as follows the metamorphosis from conventional travel as we have known it to today’s ever increasing number of digital travellers:
NEW SCHOOL OLD SCHOOL
Location-based travel audio guides for your mobile phone Lonely Planet travel guide books
Smartphones
(iPhones, Android and BlackBerry handsets) Laptops, cameras and video cameras
iPad, Kindle Books
Google Translate and voice / image search Phrase books, translation devices
Location-based social sharing Photo albums, travel blogs and postcards
Skype, WhatsApp and BBM Payphones, phonecards, e-mail, and postcards
Mobile travel booking applications Travel agents
Visit www.tourismradio.co.za. Telephone +27 +21 +448 8411 or e-mail info@tourismradio.co.za
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For media interviews or images, contact:
Media@tourismradio.info
021 448 8413