With the release of the new iPhone and iPad GeoRoamer Boomtown applications, Alberta travellers can now create a personalized audio tour of one of the province’s most unique historical attractions, the Boomtown Trail.

A scenic touring route between Edmonton and Calgary, the Boomtown Trail is made up of communities that sprang up nearly a century ago, spurred on by the expansion of the railways into Western Canada.  The GeoRoamer Boomtown app, the first of its kind in Alberta, combines GPS, tour guides, maps and brochures in one convenient handheld application. 

The app guides visitors through the Boomtown Trail, sharing stories, taking you from one point to the next and audibly alerting you about upcoming attractions and features.  You can plan your own tour or follow along with an existing tour.  This all-in-one app will tell you where you are, where you’re going, what’s near and how far it is to the next point of interest.  You can also store photos and videos collected along the way, which can be easily uploaded and shared online with friends and family.

Ken Duncan, Boomtown Trail’s Executive Director, said the idea evolved from changing signage regulations which has made it difficult for communities and businesses to promote their tourism destinations.  “When you go to a museum, you have a device – walk around and it’ll tell you what you’re looking at.  We [needed to] have something like that,” he said. 

Working with mobile branding agency VentureDNA, who developed a similar app for Yellowstone National Park, Boomtown Trail has had positive response to date.  It’s currently working on developing something similar for Blackberry smartphones along with an Android version.

“The possibilities are amazing,” Duncan enthuses.  And he’s right.  

The Boomtown Trail is located north to south between Highways 14 and 1 and east to west between Highways 21, 56 and 9.

The Boomtown GeoRoamer app is available FREE on iTunes for iPad and iPhone.  A second free iPad application, The Vacation Guide, is another practical tool for exploring the Boomtown region without the need for a conventional map or brochure.

For more information, visit boomtowntrail.com or facebook.com/discoverboomtown.

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Every summer, the small community of Manchester, Tennessee, becomes a thriving metropolis of rockers and concertgoers as the Bonnaroo music festival comes to a nearby farm.  This piece from Governing looks at how the town adapts to the surge.

When Bonnaroo’s not around, Manchester has the lazy feel of Anytown, USA, with a placid little courthouse square at one end of the main drag and a string of fast-food chains out by the interstate.  Hosting a large-scale event is a challenge for any city, but it’s particularly daunting when a festival’s arrival means a tenfold increase in the local population.  Handling the onslaught of traffic, crime and health needs of that many people is an art form for local officials.  The event this June marked the concert’s 10th anniversary, and officials say the past decade has been an extended course in crowd control. 

‘Bonnaroo is a lot of work,’ says Manchester Mayor Betty Superstein.  ‘But it’s a lot of fun.  And the community really has kind of embraced it.’

- Zach Patton, Governing

The event boosts the local economy by about $20 million each year.

Click through to read the entire article.

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It’s summer, tourist season, and when you’re not showing family and friends around your region, you just might be out exploring it yourself.

People love local history.   And while the means of attracting visitors to places may have changed, the main attraction typically has not … it’s the stories, characters and history that create and help shape a particular place.

Local history is unique.  Dynamic.  And as Yankton, South Dakota has discovered, it also plays a part in supporting the community’s economy.  

“I think history is one of the things that we see as the number one interest in this whole southeast corner of the state – even if they’re coming for hunting or fishing or other attractions,” [says] Jacquie Fuks, Executive Director of Southeast South Dakota Tourism.  “Visitors continue to tell us that history is very important.  This area has so much of that, that I think it has always been a tourist attraction.”

Nathan Johnson, in the Yankton Press & Dakotan, writes on how local attractions contribute to the local economy and how the collaboration of communities has increased the marketing resources and ability of all.

Click through to read the article in full.

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