Tourism Radio clocks its one-millionth device rental day

(Cape Town, South Africa) South African travel technology producer Tourism Radio® has officially recorded its one-millionth device rental day. This comes just weeks before the traditional Southern Hemisphere end-of-year tourist high season.

Tourism Radio currently has location-based travel guide devices circulating in South Africa, New Zealand, Namibia and Angola. The device plays audio clips automatically as the user approaches specific points of interest or enters into a general location. The uniqueness of the technology is in its ability to seamlessly arrange thousands of audio clips and organise them into a coherent dialogue, based on location, creating a great user experience for travellers as they drive around.

While in use, the device keeps a detailed log of its position and gathers information about how many times particular sound clips are played, based on the user’s movements. This means Tourism Radio is able to produce detailed usage reports on where travellers are going and what they are doing during their stay – a very handy tool for advertisers.

Since the Tourism Radio usage stats went live in early 2010, the company this month logged its one-millionth device rental day. Tourism Radio CEO Mark Allewell says, “Our ability to not only play locally-relevant information to travellers, but also to build up a huge database of where travellers are going, has given us an insight into what tourists expect while on holiday.”

“With these usage stats,” says Allewell, “we’re able to show our advertisers exactly where their money is going. No longer do companies have to spend with the faint hope of having some kind of impact on anyone who happens to see or hear their ad. Tourism Radio offers advertisers a captive audience, and we’re able to show them just how effective their campaigns actually are.”