City audio guides
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City audio guides are becoming increasingly popular due to the greater availability of cheap weekend breaks and the growth of oral rather than written information. According to market researchers Mintel, the short breaks abroad market which has been stimulated by favourable exchange rates and low cost airlines, will grow at a faster rate than all other holidays. The market is currently worth £1.7bn per annum.[1]
There is now a growing number of audio city guides producers. It allows customers to download onto their iPod or MP3 player a range of city guides. A growing number of customers are looking for a downloadable city guide that they can listen to as they explore a city. As the Internet continues to grow at the expense of conventional paper printing, audio city tours are becoming increasing popular.
Similarly, with the decline of traditional sound media such as cassettes and music CDs, this new generation of audio city tours have been created to be downloaded rather than sold as CDs in shops or online. Downloadable city guides are still in their infancy but are growing in the wake of the popularity of music downloading through iTunes and Napster amongst others. Forrester Research estimates that in Europe, music downloads will grow from approximately 23 million euros in 2003 to 4 billion euros in 2011[2]. City audio guides are benefiting from this growth, albeit slowly.
The growth in cheap weekend breaks and cheap city breaks has also fuelled the growth of these city guides. Not only does this greater availability of cheap weekend breaks mean that there is a greater demand for city guides but consumers of these cheap city breaks are looking to buy a guide.
As well as audio tours of city walks, downloadable city guides that include information about attractions, events and, shops, restaurants and bars and are available to download onto iPods, mp3 players or mobile phones are also increasingly common now. Research shows that even today, consumers like to have detailed information about cities in writing and so many city audio guides have printed material as well in their guides.
A new development in this area is the emergence of cellphone guides. These eliminate the advance-downloading step, since the guide can be accessed directly while exploring the city.
[edit] References
- Mintel - City and Short breaks abroad UK. Published May 2006
- Forrester - European Music Download forecast 2006 to 2011. By Rebecca Jennings. Published 27 March 2006
