Introducing Curatours

By Simon Barratt
10 Dec 2020

Curatours Logo

Tours of museums, galleries and heritage sites to be given virtual upgrade with new digital platform ‘Curatours’

Cooperative Innovations, developers of multi-user online experiences, announces new digital platform ‘Curatours’ to open the virtual doors of popular cultural institutions, museums and galleries. Part-funded by the UK Government’s innovation fund Innovate UK, the ‘Curatours’ app will offer an immersive experience where visitors can skip queues and get closer to artefacts, precious objects and put questions to the experts on live tours. This latest advancement to the visitor’s experience is to launch in early 2021. 

Visitors will access the ‘Curatours’ app via a smartphone, tablet, PC, web browser or a VR headset with the ability to choose tailored tours, join friends, family, classmates and other visitors online, and experience cultural and heritage sites that before now they were unable to visit. The off-site digital tour platform unlocks new opportunities for institutions to display their collections, galleries and exhibitions to a global and more diverse audience. With the ongoing impact to the travel and tourism industries, this comes at a time when institutions have seen a dramatic drop in visitor numbers and the digital experience they offer has become more important than ever.   

Experts in multiplayer gameplay and narrative storytelling, Cooperative Innovations is a team of BAFTA award winning designers and programmers. Based in West Yorkshire, the team are building the ambitious digitally driven social and accessible experience with art, culture and heritage fans in mind. 

“Going to a museum or gallery has always been a shared and sociable experience. As a result of COVID-19, we have seen the rapid adoption of technology to help us stay connected. Digital experiences have become crucial for cultural institutions to stay open, engage their audiences and attract new visitors.  To date, virtual tours can feel like a solitary one-way experience. Curatours is our solution to this, making the experience a social one that can be shared with anyone, anywhere in the world. At Cooperative Innovations bringing people together virtually is our aim and after four years of R&D coupled with the Innovate UK grant we are developing the technology to achieve this.” Emma Cooper, Project Lead at Cooperative Innovations

Set to launch in early 2021, ‘Curatours’ is in the development stage with early partners including the Anne Frank House and National Trust Scotland already involved. ‘Curatours’ is actively looking for additional partners for the platform launch.

Further information can be found by heading to the website https://cura.tours 

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