The TS discovery feed on a phone, showing a guided tour of hidden Rome.

TS tour setup, a live tour in progress and the guide's tour history with tips.

The TS tour history with per-tour tips and a prompt to tip the guide.

Adding a tip in TS, with the custom amount sheet open.

A TS tip breakdown beside the post-tour thank you and review prompt.

TS sign-in beside the traveller's tour list.

The TS photo editor beside the custom tip keypad.

A TS tip summary and the thank-you screen inviting a Google review.

The TS home feed with a featured Rome tour and its price.

Traveltech / Tourism

Offline-capable live audio app for guided tours.

TS is a two-sided mobile platform connecting tour guides with tourists through live audio streaming, tour discovery, and integrated digital tipping. Born from founder **** frustration as an NYC tour guide with unreliable tools, the platform replaces fragmented workflows with a unified, offline-capable system. A previous development partner failed after 6 months to deliver a working product, and TS came to Reliqio to rebuild from the ground up.

platform

Mobile (iOS & Android) - React Native

verticals

Traveltech / Tourism

team & duration

~5 FTEs, ~8 months

services

Digital product strategy, Digital product management, Digital product development

Under NDA.

This client is bound by a non-disclosure agreement, so names, visuals and figures on this page are obfuscated. Need more detail? Reach out and we'll share what we can.

Challenge.

Market problem: Guided tours are fragmented — guides use scattered tools, tourists have no single platform to discover, join, or pay. Technical problem: Audio must work reliably in environments with no internet, high noise, and large groups — the previous dev partner failed at this after 6 months of work. Trust problem: We inherited a burned founder who had already lost time and money. We had to prove reliability before earning expansion trust.

Solution.

Dual mobile apps (Guide + Tourist) built on React Native with Kurento/WebRTC for real-time audio. A miniature PC with Wi-Fi router serves as a local offline server — tourists connect directly to it when internet is unavailable. Online mode adds discovery, booking, tipping, and content sharing via Azure cloud backend. The architecture separates offline-critical functionality (audio streaming) from online-enhanced features (marketplace, payments, discovery).

Impact.

Tour onboarding

10 min → under 5 min.

Tour conversion

+32%

Repeat bookings

+22%

Guide satisfaction

+40%

Tour reliability

99.5%

Tourist engagement

+35%

LTV: Driven by 22% repeat bookings + 28% tip growth. Guides earn more, stay on the platform, and attract more tourists.

Retention: Both sides — guides via satisfaction (+40%), tourists via simplified rebooking (+50%) and engagement (+35%).

Conversion: 32% increase from faster onboarding (10 min → under 5 min). Tourists who book faster don’t reconsider.

CAC: Not explicitly measured but implied lower through organic discovery features, push notification re-engagement, and word-of-mouth from satisfied guides.

Features.

Tourist App

Tour discovery (location, schedule, guide-based)

Instant join / seamless onboarding.

Live audio streaming via personal headphones.

Offline mode (automatic fallback)

Digital tipping (Apple Pay, Google Pay, Stripe)

Push notifications for tour reminders and re-engagement.

Interactive features.

Guide App

Tour creation and schedule management.

Real-time audio broadcasting.

Large-group coordination tools.

Participant management (monitor, mute/unmute)

Multimedia content sharing.

Centralized control dashboard.

Platform

Offline-first local infrastructure (miniature PC + Wi-Fi router)

Automated session recovery and reconnection.

Secure onboarding and session management.

Scalable cloud backend.

Product analytics tracking.

Subprojects.

Tourist Mobile App — Discovery, joining, listening, tipping. Drives demand-side engagement and conversion (+32% tour conversion, +35% engagement).

Guide Mobile App — Tour creation, broadcasting, participant management. Drives supply-side satisfaction (+40%) and retention.

Offline Infrastructure (Miniature PC + Wi-Fi Router) — Local server enabling 100% offline audio streaming. This is the critical differentiator that the previous development partner couldn’t deliver and the reason TS came to Reliqio.

Cloud Backend (Azure) — Online marketplace features: discovery, booking, tipping, content sharing. Enables scale beyond individual tours and drives repeat bookings (+22%).

Additional integrations.

Stripe — Payment processing backbone for digital tipping.

Apple Pay / Google Pay — Native mobile payment UX for frictionless tipping. Contributes to the 28% tip increase by removing friction from the payment flow.

Amplitude & Mixpanel — Product analytics tracking engagement funnels, conversion rates, retention metrics, and the KPIs reported in impact.

Microsoft Azure — Cloud backend infrastructure, leveraged client’s existing setup rather than imposing new infra.

Kurento Media Server — Open-source WebRTC server, customized for offline edge cases and high concurrent user handling.

Push Notifications — Re-engagement, tour reminders, and booking nudges. Likely contributes to 22% repeat booking increase.

App Store / Google Play — Full production deployment and distribution for both Guide and Tourist apps.