The territory’s first smartphone app, designed by St. Croix native Shomari Moorehead, hopes to bring local businesses and tourists closer together—and all for free.
Moorehead, the founder of CrucianPoint, a technology-based company out of St. Croix, said he connected with the Department of Tourism about a year and a half ago while researching information on V.I. businesses.
Tourism was looking into making an app (i.e., an application for smartphones and tablet computers) of its own, and since Moorhead was doing the same, both sides began to collaborate on the project.
“We had been thinking about developing our own app, said Tourism Communications Director Allegra Kean-Moorehead, “so it was a great opportunity to partner with a local company and have a product that would be the official app of the U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Tourism."
She said the new app, "My Virgin Islands," targets visitors to the islands by providing useful travel information about local hotels, restaurants, things to do, car rentals, and even information about V.I. culture.
"So anything you want to know about the Virgin Islands, they can find on the app," Kean-Moorehead said, adding that the listings are meant to mirror whatever information the department has on its website.
"We’re working with all … tourism-related businesses," she said. "It’s not something where they have to sign an agreement or pay, it’s just something that’s in the interest of informing the visitors of the Virgin Islands."
With the app, users will be able to bookmark points of interests and plan their trips ahead of time by accessing up-to-date information about the islands, according to a release from the Department of Tourism.
Once the app is downloaded to the smartphone, users can access local information at all times, even without an active internet connection, the release said.
The app is now in its third version and available for the iPhone, Android and Blackberry, Moorehead said during an interview on Monday afternoon.
"We have tried to make it as useful as possible," said Moorehead. "So it is free for the businesses to put their information up there, unlike some of the other travel apps where there’s paid advertising."
But businesses can opt to pay if they want to include full descriptions and pictures (see story’s end for further information).
"At first, we were in the top 200 paid travel apps, and now since [Tourism] been working with us on it, it is now one of the top 200 free travel apps for the iPad," he said. Not going into details, Moorhead said he is also working on another free app about things to do in the Virgin Islands.
Moorehead, who’s a graduate of St. Joseph High School on St. Croix, attended Boston University, where he received a Masters of Science in computer information systems.
“With one out of two persons estimated to own a smartphone in the U.S. by the end of the year, travelers are increasingly using smartphone apps to find real-time travel information on the go,” Tourism Commissioner Beverly Nicholson-Doty said in a Tourism press release. “We are excited to take advantage of this technology that will make planning and enjoying a U.S.V.I. vacation even more convenient and fun.”
Businesses interested in learning more about the listings on the My Virgin Islands app can contact CrucianPoint at 1-855-GET-MYVI (1-855-438-6984).
