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Clark County to pioneer 'cell phone tours'

April 03, 2009|Rachel Parsons

Downtown tours and visits to the Civil War Fort at Boonesboro may be a little different this spring if plans for new audio tour guides come to fruition, said Tourism Director Nancy Turner.

According to Turner, the Winchester-Clark County Tourism Commission is working to develop a system that would allow visitors to use their cell phones to access information about buildings or historical landmarks during tours.

"We are partnering with Channel 27. They're going to do the audio on the downtown tour. For the Civil War site, we're going to do a hodge-podge of people," Turner said. "To my knowledge no other place in Kentucky is using this for their tours, so it would be nice to be a first."

Basically, each landmark would have a specific number that visitors can call using their cell phones to hear a recording giving more detailed information about the site. Turner said she hopes that the technology will eventually be used for all tours.

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"It'll help us with our marketing. â?¦ It's got a lot of features that will be really beneficial to us as far as tourism tracking," Turner said.

That tracking would allow tourism officials to see how often people are dialing the numbers, what times of day are most popular and where the callers are coming from.

Turner has been speaking to officials from other tourist destinations already using the technology and she said the response has been tremendous. She hopes to be able to launch the new system in time for National Tourism Week, May 9-17, and plans to invite Gov. Steve Beshear's wife, Jane, to take the tour.

The recordings will also be available for downloads, so people planning their trips in advance can load the files on their MP3 players and listen to them that way, as well.

"It'll be a unique tourism experience," Turner said.

Contact Rachel Parsons at rparsons@winchestersun.com.

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