Local Rover
Travel & Tourism
Ever spent precious time in a new city trekking unfamiliar streets to an attraction a website assured was “5 stars, a must see!” only to be greeted by hordes of people, an overpriced entry fee and a sinking feeling of disappointment?
Travel experiences are getting better due to increased connectivity but it’s still hard to overcome the “don’t know what you don’t know” factor of visiting a new place and finding its true heart. Melanie Walker from Local Roamer felt this frustration after moving to Tauranga from overseas with her family and started planning how to mine local knowledge to be delivered in a handy one-stop-shop style app.
Opportunity
Local Roamer had a clear image from the start - a mobile application that:
- Gave personalised travel recommendations in a user friendly and unique way
- Minimised time spent planning a trip
- Supported locals in the sharing and promotion of their favourite locations.
The user could guide the app with preferences and time constraints and in return receive instant, tailored information on things for them to see, do and eat based on their criteria.
They would also have the flexibility to:
- Add in extra locations not included on the generated itinerary
- Choose what locations to leave for another day.
With such a strong vision in mind, Local Roamer came to Enlighten Designs to make the dream a reality – and our mobile app team were more than ready to jump on board and get creative.
Solution
Our strong agile development methodology made us the perfect fit for Local Roamer’s dynamic venture. Direct engagement and regular on-going communication were critical to bringing the vision to life and made the development of the mobile app very much a collaborative project.
The idea was fun and fresh – something we really like – but we were also very conscious of Local Roamer’s investment in the project’s success and were committed to achieving the app within a tight budget.
A clearly defined product roadmap for features, technical requirements and recommendations led to a tiered release approach, allowing us to demonstrate business model stability and paved the way for user feedback determining future enhancements.
We combined Mapbox with Xamarin to get out of the box functionality whilst leaving time to focus on tailoring the app to meet Local Roamers’ needs.
Results
Phase one of Local Roamer’s dream mobile app “Local Rover” was launched on iTunes and Google Play in October 2017. The mobile app is a one-stop-shop utilising local knowledge to quickly plan itineraries for travellers, highlighting points of interest based on personal preferences defined by the user. Enlighten is invested in an on-going relationship with Local Roamer, recognised by our provision of post go-live support and readiness to work on future enhancements.
Download the Local Rover app today
