The Junta de Andalucía promotes geotourism on the strength of a GMV-developed mobile application

For the Agencia de Medio Ambiente y Agua (Environment and Water Board) of the Junta de Andalucía GMV has created a mobile application showing geological heritage trails of Andalusia, with the aim of promoting geotourism within the region.

The implemented technology is GPS-based, allowing users to keep tabs on their position through a handheld, defining the exact point of the trail, showing route maps, distances from other points of interest and giving text- and image-based information on the geological heritage of the trail.

The application has been developed as an easily maintainable and updatable tool that can also be easily reused for other trails and routes. In the first phase a total of nine geological trails are to be set up in the following nature sites: Sierra de Gádor (Almería), Geoparque Cabo de Gata-Níjar, Geoparque Sierras Subbéticas, Geoparque Sierra Norte de Sevilla, Espacio Natural Sierra Nevada, Espacio Natural Doñana, Parque Natural del Estrecho, Parque Natural Sierras de Cazorla, Segura y las Villas and Paraje Natural Torcal de Antequera.

GMV has placed special stress on a user-centered design, taking in all aspects of the whole experience and making sure they are properly planned and controlled. Another overriding concern was to ensure the information is used only by the right people at the right time, improving the organization’s operation and performance. The whole project has been built up as a multi-device development on the basis of recognized standards, open source software and open architectures.

GMV has met all the Junta de Andalucía’s requirements while adding on further functions to make the project a complete interactive guide of the area. It has been designed to work with various languages and also to cater for a wide range of visitors, showing trail information at different levels (basic/advanced) to suit the particular user each time.
Users can proactively identify points of interest during the trail by means of 2D codes set up on information panels along the route. They can play multimedia audio and video files and share photos and comments on the trail with other users by means of social networking sites (i.e., Twitter, Facebook…), setting up virtual communities to personalize and socialize the whole trail-following experience.