Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Suggestme launches a personalized city map service

There is a general consensus that the free city maps provided by hotels and standard apps are not sufficient in providing an individual tailored approach to your city trip. Paper maps can become quickly ruined through only moderate usage, and mobile apps must be used on a small mobile screen as well as being expensive to use abroad. The Dutch start-up Suggestme has a solution for this problem which transforms the tourist map into something personal and distinctly usable. With Suggestme, travelers can discover hotspot suggestions and add these to a personal city map. These custom designed city maps are then printed in high-quality A3 format and sent directly to the customer at home - ready for use in the city of their choice.

These city maps are custom made for the individual and include important tourist landmarks as well as personally added hotspots. Personal selections are supported by social media which enables travelers to be aware of the interesting spots that other travelers are talking about. Interesting suggestions are taken from a number of sources including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Suggestme have researched how city maps are used and discovered that on average a tourist will consult a city map up to 22 times each day. Thus an awareness for the importance of durability has resulted in the production of specially-designed maps made from untearable waterproof material. Travelers will no longer have to deal with maps that disintegrate or that can be ruined by wind and rain. The premium quality A3 maps can be currently sent to Europe, America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Henk Jan Bijmolt, one of the founders behind Suggestme, expands on this by explaining that; ‘the city map is personalized on both the front and the back, on one side with the personal city map, and on the other with extensive information including addresses and opening times for the hotspots that the traveler has personally selected. Furthermore, the social media element of the site allows the traveler to be aware of the hotspots that locals and other travelers are talking about at that moment in time. By combining online interaction with a personal city map the best elements from the two worlds are optimized and enhance the city trip experience’.

Suggestme offers a personal map service for 11 large cities in Europe and America including Amsterdam, Berlin, Barcelona, New York, London, Stockholm, Boston, Prague, Rome, Paris, and Istanbul.