Heritage in Your Hand is described as a self-guided activity app to promote the community’s culture and heritage.
The Heritage in Your Hand App is one of the featured stories in the June edition of the Nova Scotia Business Journal. You can access the online version of the business journal by clicking here.
Esther Dares, a member of the group working on the project, came up with the idea of developing an app that would give people a new way to experience Yarmouth’s Sea Captains’ Homes and Mercantile Heritage Walk.
Through her involvement in the Surrey bike rental business she operates with her husband, Gil, she started thinking about how the heritage tour could be made easier for people who maybe were on wheels and were finding it hard to handle a paper brochure.
“I wanted something that people could ride their bicycle and listen to and stop and get more information, so that’s sort of where it came from,” she said.
Through the use of a handheld device, the app would enable people taking the tour to hear someone telling them about the various stops. It might be an actor depicting a character from the past, giving details about a certain house, Dares says. The idea, she says, would be “to hopefully transport people, in their minds, to another time.”
The walking tour provides an outline of local history and offers information on nearly 30 points of interest in Yarmouth.
Calling the app project an example of old meeting new, Dares said, “This is a way to take an existing product and make it even better and easier to use. You don’t need a brochure. You can use your smartphone.”
Provincial funding for the project was announced in January. (The applicant had to be a non-profit entity or a municipal unit, so Dares contacted the Town of Yarmouth to see if they were interested in pursuing this and they were.)
The app, which is expected to be ready at some point during the 2015 tourism season, will offer visitors another activity option and that’s good for the local economy, Dares says.
“It gives people more things to do, more choices, and this is just the beginning,” she said. “We really need to step up our game when it comes to product for our visitors and make it easier for them to understand what’s so great about our communities here in Yarmouth and Acadian Shores.”
Every new product that’s developed is another chance to get people to stay in the area longer, she says, and visitors doing the walking tour are likely to check out some of the stores along the way. The purchases may not be big, she says, but “it all adds up, it all makes a difference. No purchase is too small to be counted, I don’t think, in the economic well-being of our downtown but also our whole economy. That money is all money that gets spent in our community.”
Dares is part of a heritage app project committee that includes representatives of the Town of Yarmouth and the Yarmouth and Acadian Shores Tourism Association.
Tony Ince, Nova Scotia’s minister of communities, culture and heritage, said the Heritage in Your Hand project is a timely one, given the popularity of handheld devices.
“This app will bring part of Yarmouth to the rest of the world,” the minister said. He also said the project was good not just for the Yarmouth area but also for Nova Scotia.
Dares takes a similar view, saying that while the project has tremendous potential for Yarmouth and neighbouring communities, “Really, the whole province could build product on this concept.”
Heritage in Your Hand is described as a self-guided activity app to promote the community’s culture and heritage.
The Heritage in Your Hand App is one of the featured stories in the June edition of the Nova Scotia Business Journal. You can access the online version of the business journal by clicking here.
Esther Dares, a member of the group working on the project, came up with the idea of developing an app that would give people a new way to experience Yarmouth’s Sea Captains’ Homes and Mercantile Heritage Walk.
Through her involvement in the Surrey bike rental business she operates with her husband, Gil, she started thinking about how the heritage tour could be made easier for people who maybe were on wheels and were finding it hard to handle a paper brochure.
“I wanted something that people could ride their bicycle and listen to and stop and get more information, so that’s sort of where it came from,” she said.
Through the use of a handheld device, the app would enable people taking the tour to hear someone telling them about the various stops. It might be an actor depicting a character from the past, giving details about a certain house, Dares says. The idea, she says, would be “to hopefully transport people, in their minds, to another time.”
The walking tour provides an outline of local history and offers information on nearly 30 points of interest in Yarmouth.
Calling the app project an example of old meeting new, Dares said, “This is a way to take an existing product and make it even better and easier to use. You don’t need a brochure. You can use your smartphone.”
Provincial funding for the project was announced in January. (The applicant had to be a non-profit entity or a municipal unit, so Dares contacted the Town of Yarmouth to see if they were interested in pursuing this and they were.)
The app, which is expected to be ready at some point during the 2015 tourism season, will offer visitors another activity option and that’s good for the local economy, Dares says.
“It gives people more things to do, more choices, and this is just the beginning,” she said. “We really need to step up our game when it comes to product for our visitors and make it easier for them to understand what’s so great about our communities here in Yarmouth and Acadian Shores.”
Every new product that’s developed is another chance to get people to stay in the area longer, she says, and visitors doing the walking tour are likely to check out some of the stores along the way. The purchases may not be big, she says, but “it all adds up, it all makes a difference. No purchase is too small to be counted, I don’t think, in the economic well-being of our downtown but also our whole economy. That money is all money that gets spent in our community.”
Dares is part of a heritage app project committee that includes representatives of the Town of Yarmouth and the Yarmouth and Acadian Shores Tourism Association.
Tony Ince, Nova Scotia’s minister of communities, culture and heritage, said the Heritage in Your Hand project is a timely one, given the popularity of handheld devices.
“This app will bring part of Yarmouth to the rest of the world,” the minister said. He also said the project was good not just for the Yarmouth area but also for Nova Scotia.
Dares takes a similar view, saying that while the project has tremendous potential for Yarmouth and neighbouring communities, “Really, the whole province could build product on this concept.”
