TO ENCOURAGE tourists to create their own compelling experience in Singapore, an app which purposefully guides tourists to take detours while enroute to their main destination proved to be the winning idea at the Travel & Tourism Hackathon yesterday.
Organised by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), the Hackathon is the first time STB is roping in industry partners to explore digital solutions to enhance the Singapore travel experience.
Winning app Detourist, which is still a prototype at this stage, will help tourists plan routes within the city-state depending on the user’s schedule to seek out “hidden gems”.
For example, a tourist planning to go to Orchard Road from City Hall could have his or her route detoured through South Bridge Road.
One of the five behind Detourist app, Alexander Lim, who is also a senior copywriter from advertising company JWT Singapore, said: “We want to bring people out of the usual Singapore to discover our culture and heritage. There is a lot more Singapore can offer.
“We want to showcase our strangely wonderful place and bring them into our kopitiam, getai, trishaw riders, while still hitting the well-known attractions.”
The team bagged the top prize of S$10,000 (US$8,000) cash.
Other than Detourist, other ideas presented at the Hackathon include utilising social apps like Instagram and Facebook to create personalised itineraries.
This is STB’s third hackathon this year. By tapping “top-notch creative minds”, STB hopes to generate ideas to enable local tourism businesses to offer something different to both locals and visitors.
John Conceicao, executive director, capability & innovation, STB, said: “Like many other destinations, Singapore is seeing increasingly discerning visitors who are also digitally savvy. We hope to generate refreshing and innovative ideas that can engage people on a more personal and meaningful level through good storytelling.”
STB’s CEO, Lionel Yeo added that STB is prepared to work together with some of these agencies that participated in the Hackathon, and will be looking at setting aside a “modest sum of money” to help polish these raw ideas for commercial use.
