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Touring | Explore the world — The ultimate app for travellers. Works literally everywhere.
Touring is a private tour guide available 24/7 wherever you are.
Built with 20% AI, 30% human curated content and 50% of magic 🪄. Can be addictive, use with caution.
Built with 20% AI, 30% human curated content and 50% of magic 🪄. Can be addictive, use with caution.
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@gabriele_mazzola great to see the launch of Touring! It sounds like a fantastic concept 🌍
I'm curious to know: what sets Touring apart from other travel guide apps on the market, and how do you plan to ensure that the narrations provided are not just informative but also engaging for users during their travels? 🤔
@michelepomposo thanks for the feedback 🫶. We tried a lot of audio-guide apps but we were never satisfied with the quality. You're even more constrained than traditional walking tours, and the narration can easily sync off with what you want to see. Therefore we are basically investing on a far superior traveller experience. Also, there's a matter of coverage. Having a semi-automated supply means we can work everywhere and with every language from day one.
@michelepomposo the entertainment, on the other hand, is probably the least challenging part. We already tested pieces of tours online and our version scored higher than extracts from traditional tours, especially on the entertainment angle. Let's say GenAI does not lack in fantasy, and it's most challenging to limit it than to utilise it.
@gabriele_mazzola Excited to see Touring make its debut here! The concept of a personal tour guide app that combines AI with real-time information is truly innovative. The ability to have a tailored travel experience without the constraints of a pre-made tour or the distraction of constantly looking up information resonates with the modern traveler's desire for both spontaneity and depth.
The integration of generative AI and 3D spatial information sounds like a game-changer for immersive travel experiences. I'm particularly interested in how the speech synthesis will add to the overall user experience. It's great to hear that there's an opportunity to be an early adopter and contribute to the refinement of Touring.
I've checked out the Simulator on the landing page, and even though it's a limited example, the potential of Touring is evident. As for the feedback:
In a travel guide app, I value intuitive navigation and personalized content that learns from my preferences over time.
To enhance the Touring experience, consider incorporating user-generated content to add a personal touch from a community of travelers.
Interactive features like AR to bring historical sites to life or social features to connect with fellow travelers nearby could be exciting additions.
Looking forward to seeing how Touring evolves and glad to be a part of the journey!
Cheers to the team for this innovative step in travel tech!
@timo_spring wow, thanks for the feedback and the appreciation. I look forward to connect and see what you think of the app. Also, I'm glad you liked the Simulator, we were super worried it might confuse of distract, but we really wanted to give a taste of the immersive experience you can have.
As for your feedback: valid points, and some of them are already in our roadmap. But we want to be lean and let users drive development, to see the features they want come to life
Hello everyone! The time has come to summarise what happened during this launch. Here's a few numbers!
The launch on Product Hunt got impressive numbers!
- 3000+ unique visitors
- 100+ different countries
- 18 different newsletters features us
- 70% of you used the online playground
- 500+ signups to become early adopter!
- more than 700 upvotes and 200 comments on Product Hunt
- a highly accurate model estimated that each team member has drunk 7 espressos during the launch day
We did not know what to expect when we started down this road, and man, did you guys surprise us. Because of the number of early adopters, we've had to change our approach a bit to not sacrifice the quality of the experience for any of you.
The team and I thank you from the bottom of our heart!
Here's a personal short thank you video:
If you're not an early adopter yet, consider signing up at https://touringapp.eu
What's next?
We have already started onboarding some of you and we will continue doing so bit by bit. We'll try and give all of you access as soon as possible.
Follow us on Twitter/X: we'll be posting updates and it will be the place to go for interacting with us: https://twitter.com/touring_app
Thank you so much for all the upvotes, all the support and all the priceless feedbacks. We could not expect this level of enthusiasm and we are thrilled to move touring to the next stage 🥰
Congrats on the launch, Gabriele; I signed up for the access and tried the pilot version. The experience is great. I went to one of the spots on the pilot app, Batu in Malaysia, and at the time, actually, I didn't know the context and just climbed up and played with the monkeys(A lot). Haha, so Touring has the potential to change the experience:)
How do you plan to charge the fee for the app? I think monthly subscriptions and travel apps are incompatible since people usually travel just once or twice per year.
I also think this may be good for tour agencies to educate tour conductors, or tour agencies ask the tour attendants to install the white-labeled app, so they can enjoy the tour more. Just an idea.
@atsuhiro_teshima Thanks Hiro, love your feedback. I myself was in Batu a few months ago and got a similar experience. Loved the monkeys and loved the view, but went home with very few insights and highlights.
We agree on the pricing, monthly subscriptions would probably not work. We expect to charge with packages, like you buy a pass for a day, for a weekend, for a week, for a month, ... So you get something resembling how people are used to pay for travel leisure. That being said we're currently focusing on the product much more than the pricing, and evidences from beta testers and first users might change our mind about this 🤗
@simone_colucci_93 Haha, I think many are experiencing the same situations. Thanks for sharing your thoughts about the pricing. Sounds like quite a valid idea:) I'm looking forward to seeing how Touring will evolve!
@simone_colucci_93 @atsuhiro_teshima Thank you Hiro, we're also looking forward to it!
This is super cool! A walking tour in your pocket at all times?! 👀
Not sure if you already have this, but native event-specific add-ons could be extremely fun. For example, let's say I'm going to Rio for Carnival next year, would the app recognize the dates automatically and curate the content based on that or would I have to ask touring about this specifically?
@nicolaas_spijker Yes indeed it will! we use real-time information at all times to create the narrations, so this will totally be possible!
@gabriele_mazzola What a beautiful video - conveys what is does exactly! loved those creatives as well. This seems like a solid app, I've added it to my list for when I visit other country/city next :)
Congrats on the launch here, Team. I hope you take the top spot today!
@simone_colucci_93 @luca_micieli @elena_bullani @riccardozoncada
@neelptl2602 love your feedback 🫶. If you're interested in trying out the app there's an Early Adopter form on our website
Touring looks like the ultimate travel companion, love it! 🌟
What kind of landmarks or local insights does the app highlight? Perhaps, it could offer hidden gems or local culture recommendations to make the travel experience more immersive and unique. As a tourist, I usually try to find non-obvious places to get the city soul better instead of visiting popular tourist places 🎒
@darya_skd Thanks Darya! Our aim is to offer a highly customisable experience based on each traveller preferences. And even for the same traveller, it might differ from time to time. For example, if I'm in a new city for a weekend I might want to do the "popular track" of sightseeing, whereas if I have more time or it's not my first day in town I might prefer wander off the beaten track and discover hidden gems. To answer your question: of course narrating about major sites is easier and for the beta we started from that, but we're building to be flexible and help travellers find their own spots to love
@simone_colucci_93 that's a nice approach! It would be also great to have a future feature involving map tags or achievements for each city or country visited. Many travellers enjoy collecting these as it helps track their progress as tourists (I do that as well :)
@simone_colucci_93 @darya_skd Yes, I think some sort of gamification is a must have for Touring! I mean, just look at how it works well here on PH!
Very cool launch! Congrats :) Couple questions:
How is the tour data verified for accuracy? I can imagine this working in big cities but what about smaller, lesser known locations?
How up-to-date is the information? For instance, ChatGPT doesn't have up to date information, so the place you are asking about, even if it is popular, might be incorrect since it's old info...
Anyway, looks awesome, looking forward to checking it out!
@anthony_latona thanks! For the accuracy we use Retrieval Augmented Generation, a technique that allows us not to rely on AI for facts. GenAI is used to create a story and a continuous and pleasant narration, but insights, facts, dates, timetables and all of that is sourced online. Which means it is as accurate as whatever you could find with several hours of in-depth research. And which means that we can be extremely up to date with the info.
Congratulations Team Touring on your fantastic launch on Producthunt! Touring is such an innovative concept, and the blend of AI, human curations, and magic seems enthralling. I'm excited to see where this takes us in the realm of personalized travel experiences. My suggestion though would be to introduce an offline mode for those obscure places with no internet connection. That's when a guide would really come in handy. Keep up the good work!
@manmohit Hey Manmohit, thank you so much for the detailed comment!
I believe an offline mode will be a must-have in the final version of Touring, to address both the places you defined as "obscure" but also to accomodate travellers who don't want to (or can't) have a data plan when they travel abroad.
Of course, the tour would be a slightly lower quality than a real one, simply because Touring always tries to fetch the most updated information, but it would be a good compromise I believe.
But to answer your comment, we definitely have it in the roadmap!
Looks promising👏. I believe this would be a great startup for Apple or Google to acquire more so Apple because of their guides feature in Apple Maps. Keep working maybe you may sell to Apple one day. Congrats on your 🚀
@imran_razak Well, if Apple wants to talk, we'd totally sit at the table and hear! You never know. But for now, full focus on delivering the best app possible!
Congratulations on the launch, Touring team! I, as a person, who doesn't like to go sightseeing in groups, really like the idea behind your app. It's indeed great to have an opportunity to just plug the headphones in and go around a city, listening about its history and interesting spots. I have one question — do you plan to add more languages?
@burmistrov Hey George, thank you for your question! We are super happy you liked the idea behind Touring! And, to answer your question, Touring will support any language, with only the limitations of the current state-of-the-art text-to-speech technologies.
Good launch @gabriele_mazzola and team.
Using this for my next trip to a foreign country. Will eventually let you know how it goes.
@baruns amazing! Thank you! Make sure to sign up as an early adopter if you want to get the app ASAP
Awesome work and congratz on the launch! I already have an idea of what this app is all about and love it so far.
I'm a big lover of collaboration and human connections, so would love to see locals sharing hidden gems of their city or best events happening in town daily 😊
@juliasuontama Hey Julia, first of all thank you so much for the feedback you've shared to us already over the past weeks! It's been extremely useful for us to understand how to best convey the value of Touring in a short time!
We also love human connections a lot, and the roadmap for Touring will surely be affected by this: we'll totally do our best to make it both a tool to explore but also to connect, no doubt about that!
Congratulations on the launch! I would love to try it out, but unfortunately, you do not have an app... :( I did subscribe for early adoption program!
@serge_neskoromny Awesome!! We'll get it to you as soon as we can :D We're working hard on it!
I'm still confused about if there is only the pilo demo or a closed beta I might get the chance to try it :D
@phoheisel Hi Philip, we have an Early Adopter program that we are running in batches. That's the best way to go if you want to get the app ASAP.
I'm really excited about this product. Our family loves traveling and new experiences - can't wait to test it out further and see what enriching things we get into!
@jefffajans Hey Jeff!! Can't wait for you guys to try it and give feedback! Have you signed up as early adopter?
@gabriele_mazzola I believe I did, but haven't used it just yet.
Will it work in the city I am in now? Denver/Boulder, Colorado?
Great Idea, I mostly rely on Tripadvisor to check what to do whenever I'm travelling but having the ability to dive deeper into what I'm actually seeing is great. Awesome job team, hope you make it far with Touring!
@florian_myter Thank you Florian! We hope so too! Based on what you're saying, I believe you would then be a perfect early adopter :D
Congratulations on the launch guys!! 🙌🎉
This is awesome!😎I haven't really travelled much yet, but once I get on the road I'd definitely need something like this😅
If only it could build travel itinerates as well....🤔🤔
All the best to the entire team! Good job peeps! 🚀💜💫
@mansi_trivedi1 thanks a lot! You are not the first one suggesting itinerary planning, we might catch a wind 🤘
As an avid traveler, I appreciate the personalization that Touring offers and believe that adding more interactive features would engage users even more during their journeys.
@alex_dulub Thank you so much, Alex! We truly believe we're going to be able to deliver on all of that!
I used to work at Handy, not sure if you've heard of them but they went bankrupt a few years ago. Basically they provided phones for hotel rooms which you could take anywhere in addition to having mobile data - one of the features was to provide tourism information about the current city. Touring reminds me of Handy, and I sure do hope this will succeed! I'll check out the app to see what you have in store. Good luck!
@florian_pranata_hidayat Hi Florian, thank you for your comment! This is very useful information for us, could you point out what the main problems were for Handy?
@gabriele_mazzola just like every business that died - they couldn't make money. They tried several different business models and none of them worked. The tourism info is just a small subset of what they provided though, so how they failed is probably not too relevant to Touring, but good information nonetheless.
Just ask away if you wanna find out more! Happy to answer with what I know as long as it's not too sensitive.
@florian_pranata_hidayat absolutely! Yeah I am more interested in - if you know and can talk about it - the problems they faced around the domain that Touring also touched.
We understand it’s hard to make something like this profitable, but if you look at how much people spend in the travel industry, the pool is quite large.
We can also talk privately about this matter!
@gabriele_mazzola sure thing! just send me a DM on LinkedIn. would be really happy to see you guys succeed where Handy didn't. A little disclaimer though, I only worked at Handy for a little less than a year, but I can probably give some insights for you based on what it was like inside the company and what I read when they came crashing down.
Touring