Innovation at Caherconnell Stone Fort in the Burren allows visitors to get a Mobile interactive guide sent to their phone for Free.

The 1000 year old Caherconnell Stone Fort in Co. Clare has jumped straight into the 21st century with its latest attraction - an interactive mobile guide, available free for visitors to this historic dwelling. The guide contains an interactive map, audio tour, visual tour and much more, all in the palm of your hand.  

The mobile guide is sent directly to the handsets of visitors for free via Bluetooth on entering the visitor centre at Caherconnell. Launched on July 24th, the Mobile Guide has proved a great success with Visitors to the ancient stone fort. 

John Davoren of Caherconnell Stone Fort said - 

"We are always looking for new and exciting ways to communicate with our visitors. We've tried lots of ways to enhance our attraction in the past - maps, guides, a virtual tour, handing out cd players and mp3 players, you name it. But when I saw what could be done with Mobile content, I knew we had to get involved. The Mobile Guide combines many previously disjointed elements - a paper map, tour stops, audio, photos, into a simple, intuitive application that's easy to use and informative."

This innovative development arose following extensive research undertaken by the University of Limerick into technology usage in the Tourism sector. The research, funded by a thematic grant from Failte Ireland, is entitled "Innovation and ICT adoption at visitor attractions", and has been conducted by an interdisciplinary team of Tourism Policy, Wireless Access and Interaction Design researchers, all based at the University of Limerick. A key finding was that mobile should be incorporated as an enabling technology to enhance the visitor experience at tourist attractions.