Seguin mobile app, trip planner now available

Seguin, TX, USA / Seguin Today

Cindy Aguirre

(Seguin) – Get ready to download a whole new way to visit and discover Seguin.

Visit Seguin has officially launched a brand-new mobile app and trip planner on its website.

Blaire Zahn, the newest member of the Seguin Main Street and Convention and Visitors Bureau team, says gone are the days of printing out all the places you want to visit and mapping them out one-by-one. Zahn, the city departments’ new assistant director, says designed with their partners at Visit Widget, this tool provides a new way to explore what the city has to offer, including hotels, popular restaurants, activities, shopping, and more.

“We wanted to make it as easy as possible for people to find everything there is to do in Seguin whether it be a great restaurant or an event that is happening, live music, whatever it may be that’s going on at the moment so they can plan that out and map it out and just make it as easy and as user friendly as possible,” said Zahn.

Zahn says this new app was a great opportunity for the city to create a user-friendly tool so that people can map out a tour or trip to Seguin. She says it was also a fun way to freshen up their website without doing a website overhaul.

“From the website, when you are on our homepage visitseguin.com, up on the right-hand corner, you’ll see a little tag that says ‘plan your trip.’ If you click that, it opens up our online interactive trip planner which is the same thing. It has a companion mobile app with it so you can plan your trip online. You can make an account and save everything and then you can also download the mobile app so that then on your phone, it is available for you as well. So, it has both aspects, the web, and the mobile app version,” said Zahn.

Zahn says thanks to the new map, adventurers will discover exciting outdoor attractions, foodies will be able to find their favorite cuisine, and history buffs will be able to easily map out their own historical tour of Seguin.

“So, the goal in the end is kind of to expand a visitor’s perspective. When you come into town, you Google what restaurant you want to go to and you’ll find a lot of your bigger more name brand type places but we want people to find everything even the little mom and pop shops kind of helping to boost up and ease in the playing field if you well. So, our goal is really to get people not to just go to the one spot in Seguin that they’ve heard of before but to be here and them say ‘hey, but this place looks pretty cool. Maybe, we should try this, or this is on our way home. Maybe, we should stop in here and have some tacos’ or whatever that might be. It really just creates that again, easier way for people to explore and find other options that they might not have thought of before,” said Zahn.

Although some might question Seguin’s timing for a new visitor’s app, Zahn believes that launching it now will only help it become a valuable tool for visitors.

“Obviously, when we started developing this app, we weren’t in the middle of a pandemic but right now, it has become a way for us to make sure that everything is up to date as quickly as possible so we are able to go in and change within an instant that ‘oh wait, this restaurant is closed for the day’ or is temporarily closed or can only take this many people or whatever those stipulations may be, we can go in there and right away, we can edit that so we have that capability to kind of modify everything. Daily, everything changes around here. You have a business that is open and the next day, they have to clean up and so we want to be able to let everybody know ‘hey, they are closed for cleaning. Come back tomorrow.’ We are also hoping it’s a good way to kind of support our businesses right now,” said Zahn.

While the mobile app might appear to be more beneficial to visitors, Zahn believes it’s the locals who might just benefit from it a bit more at least during these times of change and uncertainty.

“We want visitors. Obviously in the safest way possible, we want them to come and keep their distance and wear masks but we also want our locals to be able to get out and explore too and I think this is a way – everybody is kind of desperately wanting to know what restaurants are open, where can I go to eat so this is a one stop shop where they can find out ‘hey, this dining room is open, maybe we should go here tonight to support a local business,’” said Zahn.

Zahn says the new Visit Seguin interactive guide and companion mobile app will also note cancellations and other important information that could help turn a visit to Seguin into one of the best experiences ever.

“I mean the best parts about it are that you can kind of make it to exactly what you want your trip to be. You can pick everything you want and then map it out and tell it to go and it will give you step by step directions so that is kind of one of the really cool features and then also with everything, it is a work in progress so as far as our businesses go, we want to be a partner and we want to make sure that everything is accurate so if a business sees that ‘hey, our hours are wrong’ or something like that, we absolutely want people to let us know so we can fix that as soon as possible. They can call us here at the visitors center and we can get that changed,” said Zahn.

Individuals can create their trip at VisitSeguin.com. Visitors can also save their itineraries by using the Visit Seguin, TX mobile app for iOS and Android. Those wishing to get started are asked to search for “Visit Seguin, TX” on the Apple App Store or Google Play.

Google Play Here

iOS App Here