A Parliament Hill application will be available in the smart phone App Store this summer. The National Capital Commission is currently developing an application that visitors can download when they visit Parliament Hill.
“What’s popular now is self-guided visits, so we want to ensure our visitors would be able to do that,” says Charles Cardinal, a NCC communications advisor.
The app will be launched this summer along with the first phase of a project to install descriptive plaques in front of the buildings and statues on Parliament Hill.
“None of the 13 monuments or buildings presently have an interpretative panel,” says Cardinal, adding that this makes it harder for visitors to roam around the national landmark without a tour guide.
The plaques will feature key information about the historic personages depicted by the statues says Leslie Maitland, president of Heritage Ottawa.
“Canadians are frighteningly ignorant of their own history.” says Maitland. “I’ll bet people stand in front of the statue of Sir Wilfrid Laurier and wonder who he was.”
Sir Wilfrid Laurier was Canada’s seventh prime minister.
Cardinal says the project will be carried out in phases, starting with the statues of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister and Queen Elizabeth.
The plaque project is in line with the NCC’s approach to change the way it delivers service to its visitors.
“We are developing products for the near future,” says Cardinal. This new approach allows the NCC to keep up to speed with the popular trends and allow visitors to use the tools they already have to enhance their trips to Canadian landmarks.
Visitors using the app will find it easier to navigate through prime Centretown landmarks such as Parliament Hill, Rideau Hall, 24 Sussex and the national museums.
Heritage Ottawa will also be involved in the development of the app to ensure that the best results are provided to the public.
“We would like to see Canadians more knowledgeable about their history,” says Maitland.
The plaques will provide visitors with that knowledge.
Over the next few years, all the prime tourist spots and statues on Parliament Hill will have a plaque to call its own. The NCC is taking small steps in the project as it wants to include visitor feedback says Cardinal.
Maitland says that a lot of signage could be distracting, but Heritage Ottawa is in support of the pilot project and will be helping the NCC throughout the process.
“We will see how the public reacts to them and make changes if necessary. The rest (of the plaques) will go up within the next few years,” says Cardinal.
Ashraf Adam, a tourist from Malaysia says that he feels he cannot appreciate the statues.
“They must be here for a reason, and I know they look important. But I‘m not from here so it’s a little harder to appreciate (the statues),” he says.
Adam says he had to google the statues while he was in front of them, which made his trip tedious.