The Challenges Tour Guides and Tour Operators Face
As the tour guides know, being a tour guide or operator is more than just showing tourists around. You’re balancing a lot at once—planning, storytelling, keeping everyone engaged, and managing logistics. It’s a job that comes with its own set of challenges, and the pressure to make every tour memorable can be overwhelming.
Here are some of the common struggles tour guides and operators face:
Keeping Tourists Engaged - Your group starts off interested, but as the tour goes on, attention drops. Keeping people focused can be a challenge with so many distractions and fatigue kicking in.
Logistical Headaches - Managing a group—especially a big one—can get chaotic. Coordinating meeting points and keeping everyone on track is stressful, and it's easy for someone to fall behind.
Limited Interaction After the Tour - It's hard to stay in touch with guests once the tour ends. That makes it tough to provide extra tips or build long-term relationships that could lead to repeat business.
Standing Out in a Crowded Market - With so many tour guides out there, it’s hard to stand out. Finding a unique angle without overspending on fancy tools or promotions can feel impossible.
Managing Large Crowds - Big groups or peak tourist seasons can be overwhelming. Keeping everyone together and making sure they hear and understand you is exhausting.
These are tough problems, and if you’re feeling stuck, you’re not alone. But technology is starting to change the game for tour guides and operators, making it easier to tackle these challenges.
How Auglinn Can Solve These Challenges and Enhance Your Tours
While it might not solve everything, Auglinn offers practical tools that can make your life easier. The platform combines augmented reality (AR) and interactive maps to help you engage with tourists, manage logistics, and stand out from other guides.
Here’s how:
1. Engagement with AR Features
With Auglinn, you can drop virtual "boxes"—which can be notes, tips, or even polls—at specific points on your tour, and you can do this remotely with Auglinn's web version (Skyview). These boxes are viewable through your guests' AR-enabled cameras via the Auglinn app.
Imagine being able to drop real-time facts or trivia right at the location (remotely from your laptop), keeping guests engaged in a fun and interactive way.
2. Simplify Logistics
Say goodbye to the chaos of coordinating meeting points or schedules. You can place virtual notes at key locations like the start of the tour, nearby cafés, exchange offices, or restrooms. These notes are visible through the app, making it easier for tourists to find their way around and reducing the stress of managing large groups.
3. Stay Connected Beyond the Tour
Want to stay in touch after the tour ends? Guests can interact with the notes you leave behind—liking, commenting, or saving them for later. This extends your connection beyond the immediate tour and allows you to provide tips, updates, or even follow-up content.
4. Stand Out and Generate Additional Revenue with Remote Tours
Auglinn allows you to organize remote tours by creating custom maps filled with your notes from your laptop, which you can sell or share with guests. This is perfect for those who prefer self-guided tours or for smaller, private groups. You can even set up interactive, password-protected maps, giving you a unique way to offer premium experiences.
We will be introducing new features for selling tours and maps soon. To learn more, email us at info@auglinn.com.
How to Get Started with Auglinn
Download the Auglinn App or Visit Auglinn Skyview (app.auglinn.com): The Auglinn App and Skyview web tool work seamlessly together, providing a fully integrated experience.
The app allows you to drop virtual boxes only at your current location, making it ideal for real-time, on-the-spot interactions.
On the other hand, Skyview gives you the flexibility to drop boxes at any location remotely and lets you analyze how your content is performing.
Create Your First Interactive Tour Map:
Begin by creating a Space, which means your map. This is the foundation where you'll add all the points of interest, notes, and interactive content for your tour.
Choose the privacy setting of your map:
Public: Anyone who downloads Auglinn can view and even add boxes (notes, images, or questions) to your map.
View-Only: Your map will be visible to everyone, but only you have the ability to drop boxes or notes on it.
Private: You set a password, and only the people you share this password with will have access to your map. They will also be able to add notes if you give them permission.If you plan to sell the maps you create, this will be the best option. Thus, you can give your guests the password of this private map and allow them to access your online tour.
Start Adding Boxes to Your Map: Once your Space is created, you can begin adding virtual boxes to your map. These boxes can contain valuable information, tips, questions, images, or any other details you'd like to share with your guests, helping to create a more engaging and interactive tour experience.
All boxes you drop via the web (Auglinn Skyview) will appear on the streets virtually, and they will appear at the exact locations outdoors (visible by those who use Auglinn’s app).
By following these steps, you’ll quickly be on your way to offering immersive, AR-enhanced tours.
Auglinn gives you the tools to enhance your tours without needing to be a tech expert, making the entire process more intuitive and flexible.
Final Thoughts
Tour guiding is tough, and it’s becoming more competitive every day. By adopting new tools like Auglinn, you can simplify the hard parts—logistics, engagement, and differentiation—and focus on what you do best: creating unforgettable experiences for your guests.
Watch the video below to see how exactly Auglinn can help tour guides and operators:
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