Gowalla and Foursquare are working in very similar territory, but with Gowalla’s new redesign and their Trips feature they seem more firmly rooted in the travel space. This has become particularly apparent in their recent collaboration with National Geographic and The Washington Post to create branded tours (or trips) around cities.
National Geographic London trip
It’s certainly not a replacement for the sort of experiential guided trips being created by the rapidly expanding Urban Adventures franchise, but this feature is great for guiding users around a city and assisting them in the discovery of new places. Gowalla Trips are purely about connecting places into short duration recommended excursions. Users can check-in to each location on their way around and leave comments behind for others to read, but the storytelling element and arranged access to certain areas that comes as part of a guided tour is still missing.
A nice social marketing opportunity for Urban Adventures?
Adding branded trips to Gowalla could be an interesting opportunity for Urban Adventures, particularly since they already have the value added option available where users can pay to take a similar enhanced trip with a local guide.
What about Google City Tours?
Google made moves into this area last year with their Google City Tours (which is still in labs), but has yet to really build out this service and integrate it in any way with Google Buzz.
Further information:
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