Having created more than 400 acoustic tours of attractions and museums as well as city walks in over 15 countries, Clio Muse Tours specializes in connecting cultural institutions with the tourism market.
The advent of the pandemic has brought rapid digitalization to both the tourism and the cultural sector. On the one hand, more and more museums are adopting digital solutions and on the other hand, travelers have turned to technological means that offer them flexibility and autonomy. In less than two years audio tours and virtual tours became the new trend in tourism.
Long before the pandemic brought these new changes, three ambitious Startuppers, Andreas Fatouros, Daphne Tsevreni and Giannis Nikolopoulos, had set out to contribute to the development of global cultural consciousness by developing technological tools that will pioneer as global digital guides.
Thus, in 2014, Clio Muse Tours was born, which since then creates and distributes high-quality digital guided tours (self-guided tours) around the world. Starting in Greece, the company expanded in the early years to Italy and Holland and then to Turkey and Spain.
Today it has more than 400 acoustic tours of cultural heritage sites in 15 countries and by the end of 2021 it will have added 100 new tours to 20 new destinations.
From Rome, Madrid and Barcelona to New York, London and Warsaw, Clio Muse Tours’ acoustic tours highlight the various aspects of our cultural heritage through history, gastronomy, art and architecture.
In addition, some of the most emblematic museums in the country and important organizations have collaborated with Clio Muse Tours to create tours that highlight the rich history of Greece. Among other things, the company has created audio tours for the permanent collections of the Museum of Cycladic Art and the National Historical Museum, as well as for exhibitions outdoors and indoors, the most recent of which is the exhibition “You and AI” of the Onassis Stegi in Pedion Areos Park.
One of the most remarkable and original projects was the digital-acoustic tour “Marathon Dam: Life in the settlement”, which was completed in collaboration with EYDAP last year. The company is known for adopting sustainable practices and has won awards for its business model and for its innovative content writing methodology, which was created after an extensive research of two years in collaboration with greek museums.
In fact, this year, she scored one of the most important distinctions in the field of sustainability in tourism as one of the 25 winning companies of the United Nations World Tourism Organization’s Start-up Competition. Through 10,000 nominations from 138 countries, Clio Muse Tours was awarded for Objective 8 “Decent Work and Economic Development”.
The technological tools it has developed enable professionals from the field of tourism and culture to create acoustic and virtual tours for sightseeing, city walks and roadtrips thus strengthening local communities. Then, through its partnership with the world’s largest travel sites and with leading online travel companies such as TripAdvisor and Booking.com, it offers tours to a global community.
As early as 2018, Clio Muse Tours was awarded on a european level for its plan for the sustainable tourism development of Amsterdam in the competition of Booking.com and by the Professional Chamber of Athens in the competition “Sustainable-Innovative & Responsible Entrepreneurship. In 2019 he was ranked first in Global Innovation through Science and Technology (GIST) in The Hague. “When we started in 2014 we faced several challenges.
Many cultural institutions in Greece treated the new digital media with hesitation, while even the largest travel platforms were not positive towards audio tours”, says Daphne Tsevreni. “Then we slowly gained the trust of the domestic cultural institutions and our name became known to professionals from the field of tourism”, adds the co-founder Mrs and CFO’s Clio Muse Tours. In 2019, Clio Muse Tours served 50,000 travelers worldwide, tenfolding its turnover.
This year, during the summer months of the tourist season, it recorded a 37% increase in sales compared to the summer of 2019. “This year’s percentages fill us with joy, because they show that our products have won the trust of travelers, but also optimism, because it seems that tourism is recovering rapidly”, notes Ms. Tsevreni.
“The pandemic has brought us new challenges but has also opened up new paths in the field of culture. We have already started collaborations with major Greek museums for the creation of tourism products (guided tours with an electronic ticket), which will be available through our platform to the largest online tourist agencies.”
