Member Article

App provides fresh view of Holy Island

A Newcastle creative company is mixing the modern with the ancient by creating a mobile app for visitors to Holy Island.

The app, developed by Neil Wilson Design for the Holy Island Partnership, means tourists can point their phone at spots around the island and pictures and information about the site will appear on the screen.

Using stories from local people and locally-produced artwork, the app aims to encourage people to delve deeper into what the island has to offer instead of sticking to the castle, priory and harbour tourist trail.

Neil Wilson said: “It has been an exciting project bringing the latest technology to historic Holy Island and I am sure it will enhance the visitor’s experience.

“One aspect of the app that we particularly like is the ability to provide the location and history of the many shipwrecks that surround Holy Island since these cannot be easily located from the shoreline.

“For the future, the possibilities are limitless as the app can provide tide times, emergency contact numbers as well as details of local businesses or accommodation.

“Almost everybody carries a mobile phone and this is all that is required to access a wealth of information about the features in front of the visitor.”

Holy Island Partnership development officer David Suggett said: “The prototype mobile app has been developed to help maximise to the visitor experience to Holy Island in a way which enables us to minimise the impact of interpretation on the natural environment.

“Whilst we also hope to develop more tradition interpretative features to help guide visitors on their visit, we hope the development of a mobile application will offer flexibility and choice to visitors seeing Holy Island both before and during their visit.

“Working with Neil Wilson Design has been a productive and creative experience. The team is experienced in the technical wizardry that goes behind the app but also responsive to our creative needs in terms of how we want to promote the island to visitors.”

Neil Wilson Design is now talking to other North East tourism groups to develop similar app technology to boost the visitor experience at sites across the region.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Karen Dent .