Pladia, a platform that builds, manages and improves visitor experiences by experiential design company Art Processors, has unveiled its new Tours feature for Pladia Empower, a Progressive Web App (PWA) that delivers storytelling and wayfinding experiences for museums and attractions.
Tours has been developed through close collaboration with visitor-experience leaders at cultural institutions and offers a visitor-centred solution that makes telling the stories of a venue and its collections easy, inclusive, and future-proof.
Layered, multi-audience storytelling
Pladia's suite of tools seeks to address the key issues faced by the cultural sector that impact the success of digital engagement:
1. One size fits all tours
Attractions welcome diverse audiences, such as school groups, cultural communities, and international tourists, and want to tell stories that connect with all of them.
With the new Tours feature, cultural organisations can go beyond a one-size-fits-all tour and create multiple narratives for the same set of stops, for example, a general adult tour, a narrative crafted for children, and a specialised tour for a specific cultural community, all available in multiple languages.
This versatility allows attractions to serve the broadest possible range of audiences.
2. App downloads
Native apps require downloads and logins, creating friction. "Our analysis across multiple institutions shows that native app uptake rarely exceeds 5% of visitors - consistent with wider industry studies placing the figure closer to 2–3%," says a spokesperson from the company.
"This makes bespoke native apps an unsustainable investment for audience reach and cumbersome to maintain operationally for venues."
In contrast, approximately half of visitors use their browsers on-site to search for information about the venue and exhibits.
Pladia seeks to meet audiences where they are by bringing the seamless look and feel of a native app to a mobile, browser-based experience.
As a PWA, Pladia Empower does not require logins or downloads, giving cultural institutions the best chance of remaining the source of truth for their visitors.
3. Barriers to audio
Audio guides are popular, yet headphones can present a significant barrier.
Pladia's internal data from thousands of visitors shows that more than 60% don't bring their own headphones. This leads to audio being missed or played aloud, compromising the experience.
"We solved this with Audio Access+, turning a visitor’s own phone into a private audio guide," says the company.
"By simply lifting the device to their ear, they can listen privately like a phone call. Our customers have already seen a 40% increase in unique listeners through phone-to-ear playback."
4. Unreliable wayfinding
Bluetooth beacons and location-tracking hardware are expensive to maintain and can be unreliable for guests.
This challenge led to the development of Pathways, Pladia's indoor/outdoor wayfinding system, which provides visitors with step-by-step directions using clear reference points, without needing extra hardware, logins, or downloads.
By treating indoor wayfinding as a visitor-centred design challenge, rather than a technical one, the company goes beyond the 'blue dot' and reflects how visitors naturally explore.
"Every challenge we’ve explored has informed the way we built Tours - bringing each solution together into one seamless, visitor-centered experience," says Pladia.
"By embedding inclusivity, flexibility, navigation, and a deep understanding of visitor behaviour into its design, Pladia Empower enables institutions to deliver stories that resonate with the widest possible range of audiences."
Additionally, the company will soon release a paid tours feature that helps attractions turn their digital audiences into new revenue streams.
Earlier this year, Pladia announced its first product in the Pladia Extend portfolio: Digital Labels. This is a hardware-agnostic solution that addresses the real challenges museums face with digital object labels and interpretation.
