Great news for online travel shoppers. As most of us do nowdays when thinking of traveling to somewhere exciting, we turn to the web for some fantastic in depth info on the destination we have in mind. Well, if that destination is anywhere in Southern Africa, then here is some very good news. The Cape Town-based company SmartGuide has developed an online interactive travel guide for Southern Africa. This guide is built on a combo of Google Maps and Google Earth and has excellent detailed information available. With thousands of points of interest, places to stay, eat, activities and more. Each icon placed on the map contains media rich content (pictures, podcasts, videos, virtual tours, etc) which can be easily accessed. The delivery of content is layered and managed so as not to bombard the traveler with too much information at any one time.

This technology has caught the eye of many of the big tourism players within South Africa and SmartGuide is likely to announce some exciting partnerships in the near future which will launch their product more widely. This technology is set to change the face of online travel shopping and research, allowing the potential traveler to get a real sense of their destination before committing to their plans. With a lot of interest from tour operators, destination marketing organizations, accommodation brokers and service providers atthe recent Travel Indaba in Durban in May, this product is set to impact tourism in a big way.

For a demo of the online Interactive Travel Guide watch the video below.
Or follow this link to try it out for your self:

To find out more about SmartGuide and other products that they have, like audio visual guides to destinations in South Africa, that can be downloaded onto handheld devices such as iPods, phones etc. see their website: