New app inspires Copenhagen's many visitors to discover the city on their own and supports responsible tourism

Needs on the go are best solved in a mobile format. Tourists need help, inspiration, and an overview of the situation – quickly and on the go. Therefore, the solution is an app, as this format best supports the tourists' needs. An app can save favorites and filters, use the phone's location, and function as an easily accessible tool.

The answer is The Copenhagen App: An official, digital city guide that brings together inspiration and practical information in one place – and right in your pocket. The app is developed specifically for mobile use and makes it easy for tourists to explore Copenhagen and the surrounding area on their own. We use AI to customize recommendations based on season, weather, and current events. 

Explore – curated inspiration and current events 

The Explore page brings together curated and themed recommendations with events from the app’s calendar, What’s On – giving users a clear overview of what to see and do. It is the app's most popular category and allows tourists to explore the city from a local perspective. The app contains over 1,000 places and experiences, divided into four themes plus the event calendar, which together encompass everything from food enthusiasts to culture lovers.

Info – the practicalities of green transport in focus 

Info gathers useful knowledge about transport, services and tourist offices and inspires people to choose green transport to get from one experience to the next. 

Map – an active measure to spread tourism 

The map makes it easy to explore Copenhagen's many urban areas on your own. With Spots, the user can find experiences nearby and filter by theme, category, and district. The Map is the app's most used feature and acts as an active tool to distribute the flow of tourism and support the strategy of more responsible and sustainable tourism.

Search and Profile – help right where you are 

The advanced search function finds relevant content based on the user's queries and can, for example, suggest the nearest café or park. The Profile contains saved favorites and recent views, and users can also change language or choose landscape view. 

The concept was developed as a PoC (Proof of Concept) in close collaboration between Copenhagen Visitor Service and Knowit. 1508 was responsible for the design and branding, inspired by the city's colors: asphalt, black roofs, tiles, bricks, and sunset. 

The app is developed in Flutter (Google's cross-platform framework), so there is one common source code for both iOS and Android. This makes maintenance easier, and we are responsible for a monthly service check, where we ensure that the app follows the latest iOS and Android updates, handles bugs and the like, so that it works stably for users. 

The user experience is designed with a focus on simple navigation and low friction. The app requires no login, user profile, or onboarding. It is ready to use right away. With location as a central feature in both maps and search, tourists can quickly find inspiration, get an overview, and discover relevant experiences nearby.

Great emphasis has been placed on accessibility, using WCAG as a benchmark, so that as many people as possible can benefit from the solution. At the same time, we do not collect or store sensitive personal information, which means that the solution is fully GDPR-compliant by design. 

AI is used strategically to make the experience more relevant to the situation. In the For you section, selected recommendations are adapted to the season and weather when the user is in Copenhagen. This makes it possible to suggest relevant experiences here and now – for example, indoor activities on a rainy day or answers to very specific wishes, such as what is suitable for a jazz-loving German with a gluten allergy and two children on a summer day in Copenhagen.

AI is also used for translation, and the app is available in 11 language versions: English, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, German, Dutch, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian – and can be scaled to more. It is a very good guest service and makes it possible to reach much wider, but with the same staffing and without the significant costs that classic translation work would require. 

AI is also used in the app's semantic search, making it easier for users to find relevant places, even when the search is imprecise or phrased differently. Although the app is translated into 11 languages, it can understand searches in many more and provide answers in English. This is an advantage for tourists who read English more easily than they write it.

Activating the users 

To ensure awareness of the app, we handle ongoing activation. The app was introduced through a campaign across digital and physical touchpoints by 1508 – completely in line with the design and the app’s look & feel. The app icon symbolizes the road through Copenhagen and invites users to explore. In addition, targeted activation efforts are carried out ahead of key tourist seasons to increase awareness of the app and inspire more people to explore the city. 

With The Copenhagen App, the City of Copenhagen and Copenhagen Visitor Service support the ambition to scale digital guest service and promote sustainable tourism by inspiring users to discover more parts of the city and its surroundings, thereby reducing the pressure on the classic tourist areas. At the same time, the app makes credible, official tourist information available in the format that tourists already use most when they are in the city: the mobile phone. 

The numbers show that the app has been well received:  

• Nearly 100,000 downloads annually 
• More than 400,000 map interactions in one year. 
• Nearly 1,600,000 page views 
• Users from more than 100 countries 
• 4.3/5 in the iOS App Store 

The app is not only downloaded – it is actively used as a tool for navigation and discovering experiences during the stay. Our statistics show that users return nearly three times on average and with an average stay in Copenhagen lasting three days. This indicates that the app is often used daily throughout the visit. 

In relation to the ambition to spread tourism, the many map interactions – together with the fact that both Districts and Day Trips are among the most clicked content types – indicate that the app actively supports the work of getting more people to explore Copenhagen and the surrounding area more widely. 

The Copenhagen App is not just a tourism app. It is a digital tool to make public services more accessible, scalable, and relevant – which works for both the users and the organization behind it. Employees experience the app as a powerful work tool, and it is further developed in close collaboration with them, so that it keeps up with new needs and technological possibilities – and so that tourists continuously get new features and even more inspiring content. 

Do you want to know how we can assist you?

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