Two New Brunswick brothers – both in their 60s – have come together late in their working careers to create goExplore Canada, the first big, big smartPhone travel app for all of Canada.

“Our goal was the most complete travel app for Canada,” said Mark Pedersen, 62. “If you’re traveling in Canada, this is the app you want to have.”

With that goal in mind, the producers are reaching beyond the big cities to include attractions in smaller communities as well, plus their hotels, restaurants and shops.

The free app uses detailed maps and already includes more than 3,000 Points of Interest in Canada -- searchable by province or territory and including sections for nature and adventure, history, fun things to do, eating, sleeping, night life, transportation, essential services and more. It’s in the Apple App store now and the Android Market around the end of the month.

“Travel is rich with visual possibilities,” said Jon Pedersen, 65. “Stills and video are very effective when it comes to exploring places and in our app we’ve made good use of both. This is a very pretty app.”

One of the challenges was to build an app this big and make sure it didn’t crash. But working with their software developers, the brothers have come up with an app that occupies little space on the phone and runs fast. They’ve developed it through their company, goExplore.mobi Inc.

The brothers have multimedia in their blood, and even a little ‘promotion.’ Their grandfather was a showman and entrepreneur who, in 1914, built and managed the beautiful Imperial Theatre in Saint John, N.B. Jon and Mark have traveled and worked in every part of Canada but have always kept the Maritimes home base and both have returned to live.

Jon is a self-taught filmmaker who, early in his career, was honoured with the Lieutenant-Governor’s Award of Excellence in Cinema and who, for many years has shot and directed documentaries and features, both independently and for the National Film Board, TVOntario, CTV and others.

Mark is a journalist who worked for The Canadian Press, CBC Radio and then CBC Television as an on-air political reporter, then as a producer and eventually Executive Producer. Later, he established Pedersen Productions Inc. and independently produced (with Angus Street Productions) 78 episodes of the Canadian Antiques Roadshow, as well as documentaries for both CBC and CTV.

The core of the goExplore Canada app consists of hundreds of public tourist attractions across the country. To recover their costs, the producers have also been selling spots to hotels, B&Bs, restaurants and clubs,

So far, most of the pins are in the cities but the producers think the tour app has special appeal to smaller communities who want to attract travelers. They’ve seen strong response in smaller places -- towns like St. Andrews and Sackville in New Brunswick. “It really gives them an opportunity to put the word out and entice travelers in,” said Mark.

To put these places on a more equal footing to the big cities and their high volumes, the producers are offering special discounts for groups of hotels, restaurants and shops in the smaller communities.

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MORE: www.pedersenproductions.com
mark@pedersenproductions.com
(902) 220-6842