Originally Published on NEW ORLEANS(WGNO) website on January 14, 2016
Behold! The future of New Orleans tourism: Joieful, an app for your PC/ smartphone that acts as your personal concierge.
“What Joieful does is it goes out and finds the best of experiences available in a destination, through a lot of different mechanisms rating systems, reviews, interviews, personal testimony,” remarked app founder, Aaron Dirks.
The app also helps people curate their unique experiences.
Like other apps that allow you to read reviews, Joieful goes above and beyond and books the tickets and makes the reservation. Also, someone is always available to answer your questions.
“This is a Yelp on steroids,” said Dirks.
Joieful just came to a 5-year deal with the Hyatt Regency.
“We manage a 24-hour concierge service where a guest when they’re checking in, even though the concierge is no longer on staff they can ask for advice or get questions answered via our text message service or via our emails. We’re enhancing the service level for hotels like the Hyatt Regency. We also are just now rolling out our virtual reality program,” said an excited Dirks.
“You can expect to be able to look at Mardi Gras itself on Bourbon Street, ‘what does it look like?’ And make sure they really want to go down there if it’s that busy! Or if they’re in a bind and need some help on the street and they need some advice they can text us 24-hours a day. All of our million visitors can get access to a professional to help them navigate and get their way around town and be of service to them.”
Whether you’re just visiting the city or are a local, with the app you can wear a virtual reality device and go on a one-minute experience of the thing you think you might want to do, whether that be a swamp tour or trying a new workout class.