The Austin Convention & Visitors Bureau (Austin CVB) has launched a new mobile application that serves as an interactive site itinerary and destination management tool for meeting planners, event attendees and clients considering Austin as a meeting or event destination.
Aptly named The Austin iTinerary, the application invites users to download their site visit or group schedule, track appointments, get in touch with venue contacts, view maps, and add comments to each item for future reference.
The Austin CVB developed this mobile application to accommodate early-adopter clients who are already using their phones and PDAs for scheduling, taking notes and finding information.
The Bureau offers this paperless itinerary as an option for each client participating in a site visit (paper itineraries are still produced for clients that prefer them).
Clients can simply download their customized schedule, including a summary of the destination, hotel details, Convention Center information, images, videos, music, maps of the city and information on key restaurants, attractions and more.
Since the program is web-based, the Bureau can make last-minute changes to a client's itinerary without additional downloads. Furthermore, the user can input notes below each iTinerary listing, which helps them keep all their information and impressions in one, easily-accessible place.
The application also offers a print function so the user can make a hard copy from their regular computer.
"With the rapid growth of mobile technologies for Blackberrys, iPhones and other smartphones, the opportunity to leverage this technology for the meetings industry has never been greater," says Roy Benear, Senior Vice President of the Austin CVB.
"We realized after much reformatting and revamping of our paper itineraries that there must be a more effective way to facilitate clients' visits to Austin. We worked with our customer advisory board to brainstorm effective programs and now we can say - to use a term - we have an app for that."
Benear adds, "To our knowledge, the Austin CVB is the first destination marketing organization to take advantage of this technology for this purpose. We see it as our first venture into the mobile realm, and its success will undoubtedly lead us to create more applications in the future."
The Austin iTinerary will also be used to facilitate events, press trips, and partner communications. For example, the Austin CVB recently utilized the application to facilitate a Washington, DC sales mission by loading the sales call schedule into the phone and sharing the link with accompanying partners.
Rob Hampton, vice president of sales for the Austin CVB, remarks, "The Austin iTinerary was a hit during our recent DC mission; and our hotel and Convention Center partners loved it. It allowed us all to stay on the same page - literally - while sharing comments with one another."
This mobile application is the latest in a series of technological and interactive innovations in Texas' capital city. The Austin Convention Center recently upgraded its wireless network to simultaneously serve more than 7,000 users or download the entire catalogue of the Library of Congress in just three days.
Earlier this year, the Austin CVB received the U.S. Travel Association's Destiny Award for interactive marketing based on the tech-savvy user planning and creative sharing functions at:
For more information, visit Austin Convention Bureau
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