You can now select themed categories for all of your tour(s). Choose from the 35 options we’ve added so far, like “Ancient History”, “Religious Sites”, or “Local Legends” to help listeners find exactly what they’re looking for. The feature is already live on the web, so start selecting your categories now to get the full benefit.
Choosing the right categories for your tour
Think of categories as a way to reach the exact listeners who you had in mind when you were creating the tour. You can pick one to five categories from our 35 available options (at least one is required to publish). If you don’t see a category that fits your tour, you’re welcome to suggest it in the chat below.
Here’s where you can add categories for your existing tours.
- Open the final touches tab for your tour:
- Open your publisher dashboard and scroll down to the bottom
- Find the relevant tour in the “Your Tours” section
- Under “Manage Tour” on the right, click the “Distribution” button (this will take you to your tour in Mapmaker)
- Click “Final touches” at the top of the page
- Select your categories:
- Choose one to five categories (to deselect a category, just click on it again)
- Click “Save” when you’re happy with your selection
Choose categories that genuinely reflect your tour’s theme. Just because you mention a few places to stop for something to eat, it doesn’t mean your tour is food-themed. We also want to consider and manage listeners’ expectations. We don’t want someone buying an architecture-themed tour that only mentions one building.
An example of a tour’s final touches tab with categories selected
We’ve already assigned some categories to select tours based on our knowledge of the tours. You’re welcome to change these and add additional ones that better represent your tour.
In the final touches tab, you’ll also see our Terms and Conditions and a publish tab with the date that your tour was published. You can read more about our updated final touches process on our documentation.
How categories help your tour get noticed
With a current total of 1784 tours in 548 destinations, we’re now publishing a new VoiceMap tour every single day – and we plan on publishing even more. This growth can sometimes make it a little tricky for new tours to stand out, especially given the consistent quality of our existing tours. Categories are another way we help your tour to get noticed and help listeners discover the specific themes that interest them.
Here’s how categories will appear below the tour description
The future of categories
We recently updated the search function on both the web and the app so listeners can search for their favourite publishers by name. Soon, they’ll be able to search for specific categories, like “Black History” or “Museums” or use categories to filter for specific tours, like they can now do with tour types (Walk, Run, Indoor, Drive).
We’re also planning to display themed collections on country and city pages. When someone browses tours in a specific destination, they might see curated sections like “Food Tours in France” or “Literature Tours in London”.
An example of “Food Tours in France” as a category on the country page
Categories also help us understand what listeners want and where we can fill gaps. Just as our Key Destinations program helped us create more tours in popular locations, categories will help us identify the themes and topics that resonate most with our audience.
