App helps treasure hunters to interact with top sites

Children as well as adults could soon be seeing some of the country’s biggest attractions in a new light — as they become the settings for interactive treasure hunts.

A new app developed by a Cork-based start-up allows daytrippers and tourists to enhance visits and holidays at the country’s best known tourist attractions via an interactive app.

Once you’re in the vicinity of any of these sites and have downloaded the free Keyquests app, it will send you details of how to save money on entry fees and how to get details of that site’s particular treasure quest.

Keyquest users will also be sent details of special offers and deals at and in proximity to the site.

It also contains a travel blog and photo album so you can gather together snaps taken during the day and post details about the quest you took part in and the attraction itself to your account. As well as treasure hunts that include prizes, there are also quizzes on the attractions built into the app.

Keyquests is live-testing it at 12 attractions across the country including Fota Wildlife Park, Dingle Aquarium, Dunbrody Famine Ship, Waterford Crystal, the Medieval Museum in Waterford, the Aquadome in Tralee, the Clonakilty Model Railway, the Titanic Experience, and the Jameson distilleries in Cork and Dublin. Another 38 sites have agreed to join the quest trail.

The concept is the brainchild of the man who developed the Titanic Experience in Cobh, Gillen Joyce.

“We’re getting a fantastic reaction from users and from the various tourist sites. They’re loving the idea of connectivity, that after you visit one site that you’ll go on and do another quest so you can keep on updating your account.

“In the near future, we’re hoping to have games, related to the various attractions, up on the site so if you’re going from Fota Wildlife Park to the nearby Titanic Experience, your kids can play a game about either site as you drive from one location to another,” said Mr Joyce.

For advertisers, it also provides a novel way of allowing local businesses to directly send offers to consumers who they know are close to the site of their business.