Strand Rederi – boat sightseeing out of the ordinary

Strand Rederi has three boats in central Stockholm. They can be chartered for parties and celebrations, and in summer they run daily sightseeing tours for visitors who want to see Stockholm from the water. With the Strand Boat Tour app, every passenger can enjoy a guided tour in their own language, with the right audio playing automatically at the right place.

Challenge

Since 2017, Strand Rederi has run boat charters and sightseeing tours in Stockholm. Their three boats depart from Skeppsbron, the quay along the Old Town, and all have sun decks, a wide range of food and drink and proper sound systems. The boats can be hired for private celebrations, and in summer there are daily sightseeing tours for visitors who want to see Stockholm from the water.

As passengers often come from many different countries, Strand Rederi wanted the best way to offer audio guides on passengers' own phones, in their own language.

Since it's all about sightseeing, Strand wanted passengers to be able to look out, take photos with their phones and move freely around the boat while the audio guide automatically played the right audio file at the right place.

It was also important for Strand to be able to manage the content easily themselves, with all changes reaching passengers immediately.

Solution

With a native app, Strand can offer everyone an easily accessible audio guide. The app's core guide features worked well for adding all the points of interest along the route with their audio files. To meet the wish for the right audio to start automatically at the right place, we developed the app's GPS component.

Each audio track is linked to a point along the route. When the boat comes within a certain radius of that point, the audio starts automatically. Once the tour has been started in the app, passengers can keep their phone switched off in their pocket and the next track will still play at the right place.

When visitors board the boat, they get information and can scan a QR code to download the free app from the App Store or Google Play.

The guided tour is now available in four languages: English, Spanish, French and Mandarin.