Rome pairs culture and sustainable mobility in tourism initiative

Italian-American micro-mobility company Helbiz is collaborating with travel industry firm Vox to offer an integrated “experiential tourism” service in Rome.

As part of this partnership, tourists will be able to visit historical areas and cultural sites of interest around Rome via scooter or electric bike by listening to a dedicated audio guide, which will be available on the Helbiz mobile app.

Sightseeing tour

According to the partners, through this collaboration, registered Helbiz users will be able to visit Rome in a “flexible and sustainable” way, stopping at places of interest to listen to information provided by the audio guide. Content provided by the guide will last an average of 60 seconds, the ideal amount of time for a sightseeing tour for the city to be experienced in a smart, dynamic and personalised way, the companies report.

Users will be able to purchase two packages that guarantee unlimited access to all multilingual audio guides of the city. A map will open within the Helbiz app, displaying tourist attractions in the city, which can be selected by audio guide.

“This new service offered by Helbiz and Vox represents an excellent combination of culture and electric sustainable mobility, in the name of technological innovation,” said Virginia Raggi, mayor of Rome

“It is a very useful and original tool to get to know the extraordinary historical, artistic, architectural and cultural heritage of our city first-hand, as the first in Italy for micro-mobility sharing services.”

Helbiz said the new service, launched in Rome, will also be operational in cities where it is present including Milan, Naples, Turin, Florence, Verona, Genoa, Bari, Pescara, Cesena, Ravenna, Parma, Pisa, Latina, Naples, Modena, Palermo, Ferrara, and Rimini.

“This new service offered by Helbiz and Vox represents an excellent combination of culture and electric sustainable mobility, in the name of technological innovation”

“We will make our app-based audio guides, developed with our partner Vox, available with exclusive itineraries that will allow tourists to relive the vast history of our city in a more than sustainable and safe way: by listening,” added Matteo Tanzilli, head of public affairs at Helbiz.

“In this historical moment, it is important that private companies support each other to restart business.”

Following its launch in Rome last year, Helbiz reports its fleet of electric bikes and scooters have taken more than 400,000 rides and travelled over 630,000km, with an average of 2.5 km and 14 minutes per individual ride.

Additionally, Helbiz claims its vehicles have saved more than 2,000 tons of CO2, an incredible figure in a city with such a high population density like Rome.

Among Vox’s core products is POPGuide an interactive destination, mapping and audio tool that helps deliver personalised experiences for third party customers during their trip, on their smartphones, that can be custom-branded.

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