Waynote: the tourist GPS that wants to make you love the highway

Out of the million French travelers and foreign tourists who take the highway, very few have information on the regions they are crossing.

When it is time to make a stop, due to a lack of visibility in the exit zone, these automobile tourists remain in the rest spots consuming rather than discovering the regions.

Meaning that travelers are excluded from the riches of the traveled territories. And the territories have no means of reaching out to this target that passes right by.

The proposition of Waynote is to connect highway travelers with the traveled territories and to transform a constrained route into a discovery route.

This mobile application provides cultural, economic, and touristic informations to the traveler that are geolocated in realtime and in audio on the points of interest seen or located in the surroundings and on the brown signs.

Waynote enables territories to access this potential clientele of millions of travelers per year.

Territories and local touristic players can, right from the route, host these travelers, develop their popularity by announcing a remarkable element on the way, and increase their visitor rates by inviting travelers to do a visit.

In this way, the application generates new touristic flows in usually unknown areas.

Waynote aims at all curious souls, to any type of profile (family, retirees, carpoolers, backpackers, etc.)

Those wishing to know more about geography, history, architecture, economy, culture, the brown signs, etc.

Contrarily to tourist guides of which the information is limited to a specific geographic zone, Waynote broadcasts touristic and cultural contents on the mobile, in real time with audio during the entire trip.

The pauses offered are characterized by the easiness of access (proximity of exits and fluidity of traffic), the value of the sites, and the quality of offer.

Waynote enables the traveler to control the hours spent on his trip.

Today, mobile connectivity is restricted to practical information (traffic, itineraries, weather, etc.) broadcasted by driving assistants, our application is the only cultural navigator.

Waynote is a new communications media for the traveled territories, enabling to be in contact with travelers on the highway: local collectivities (tourism offices, general, regional councils etc.), cultural entities (museums, festivals, events, etc.), economic players (terroir products, restaurants, accommodations, regional businesses, etc.)

The application is free to users.

Its economic model relies on memberships, called “Communications Packages”, allowing the economic and cultural entities to communicate on in order to promote their offers related to the thematics and values of Waynote.

The beta version offers two main functions: the audio and realtime narration on the landscapes with suggestions of pauses.

Funding will be looked for at the end of this experimental phase to develop new functions, deploy an anglophone version, and expand the coverage of the application to all highway axes in France.

Simultaneously, we’re collaborating more with territories to better promote them.

Waynote is available in beta version of Google Play and the App Store since this summer, on the axes Paris-Menton, Menton-Bayonne, and Bayonne-Paris.

Nadine Pédemarie, cofounder

After 15 years of experience in economic and touristic development, and several tours de France on the highways, Nadine supervises product development and establishes the creation of our original contents.

Fabien Apheceix, cofounder

Immersed in the ecosystem of startups after some time working in an investment bank, Fabien contributes to business development and implementing the project.

i-tourisme : What drew you to entrepreneurship?

Fabien Apheceix: The synergy of each of our professional paths drove us to provide the response to a felt need as regular, and frustrated, users of highways.

The maturity of mobile technologies, in the context of emerging connected vehicles, has incited us to materialize this concept.

i-tourisme: What qualities should an entrepreneur have?

Fabien Apheceix: Pugnacity, enthusiasm, and vision.

i-tourisme: What are your ambitions?

Fabien Apheceix: Our ambition is to become the leading cultural and touristic application to constantly accompany the traveler driving through Europe, from North to South, East to West.