As a passionate level 8 local guide, I love to make museums, my most favorite places to visit, more reachable for many people. When I started my journey two years ago to tour Egypt’s museums, it has been so vital for me to find enough information about the place I am heading and that’s exactly where the problem was whose fixing became later my mission.
In order for people to reach the places they search on Google Maps, there must be practical information that gets them there. Google Maps is powered with many options that make places more accessible such as getting directions, finding public or private transport, getting information about the duration, best routes, etc. Recently, Google Maps has also added a new option to connect the app with your music library so you can better enjoy your journey or even play snake and see how much you know your town!
Yet, more practical information from the street view is able to transform the map experience and make it much more effective and efficient. What I mean is adding up-to-date reviews. To make museums more accessible, we local guides need to write detailed updated reviews.
To write a helpful museum review, you must first think about the audience, here they are the people who search and visit museums. They can be youth of different age groups and many interests, single people or parents with kids. Audience can be living in the same city or visitors, etc. When you consider all this information, you’ll have more insights into what to include in your review.
As I have been and will always be a passionate museum visitor, I have used my own experience to come up with what a museum review model which has shown success on Google Maps. In this model, I like to mention information about:
1- What genre the museum is.
2- The size of the place.
3- The history of the museum.
4- What types of exhibits are displayed there.
5- How large is the number of exhibits (Some people prefer not to visit a museum if it’s poor in exhibits!)
6- To whom this museum tour can be the most enjoyable.
7- Whether or not the museum would be interesting/educating for kids.
8- The availability of a tour guide.
9- Entry fees.
10- Photography allowance.
11- Working hours.
12- Location of the museum in reference to popular places nearby.
13- How to get to the museum in terms of public or private transport.
14- Some fun/interesting facts about the museum, if you can.
One thing I highly recommend is writing the review in your own language not in English. While it’s really good to help tourists learn about and find the best places in your town, remember that your own people are larger in numbers and the #1 audience to encourage to learn about their own country. Writing in English is limiting your local access to your review and therefore the place you wrote the review about. Also, all reviews can be translated by the Google Translate option on Maps so your words will also reach a foreign audience.