The Spanish Tourist Board (Turespaña) and travel social network Minube have joined forces to launch a new travel app for iPad, iPhone and iPod: Experience Spain. The new application aims to ‘inspire’ the more that 55 million tourists who visit Spain each year by helping them plan their stay through the recommendations of thousands of other fellow travellers.
There is no doubt that for many travellers, mobile handsets such as smartphones and tablets are slowly substituting more traditional paper based books and guides. Mobile technology will play a significant part in the future of travel and this new application will provide technology buffs with an invaluable travel companion.
Screen shot of the Experience Spain app...
What’s included in the guide?
Here’s a short list of some of the main characteristics and features within the app:
- Useful information on 350 different destinations in 17 different areas of Spain
- 950 traveller experiences
- 800 photographs
- Location Maps
- Possibility of seeing the information both online and offline
- Personalised plans based on traveller preferences
- Possibility of saving the most interesting spots in‘Favourites’
The guide is nicely designed with a very visual interface which allows the traveller to browse through three main sections: What to See, Where to Eat and Where to Sleep. Each one of these sections includes interesting places chosen by the actual users and travellers of the Minube social network. With this practical information about the destination – photos, contact details, maps, etc. – travellers will be able to make the most of their visits.
One of the most interesting features is the possibility of accessing this wealth of information without an internet connection. This is possible due to the fact that the application can be downloaded to your mobile. This is a really handy feature which will come in handy for people travelling from abroad and worried about the expense of roaming charges 🙂
Perhaps the most innovative function within the application is the possibility of adding small theme-related guides which can be downloaded as and when the traveller wishes. When they are downloaded, these mini-guides become part of the main application and mean that the traveller can have their own personalised guide based on personal preferences. The developers hope to add guides such as “Thinking of the little ones” (For families with kids) “Sports enthusiasts”, “History Buffs” amongst others.
For the moment the ‘Experience Spain’ application is only available in Spanish but will soon be available in English, French, German, Italian and Portuguese. You can download the app for free in the Apple iTunes Store.
