A BORDERS town will be the main focus of a new tourism app being trialled in the region.

Tourism projects Destination Tweed and Go Tweed Valley have teamed up to join a Scotland-wide pilot of the Geotourist app for the next five months.

Tweed Valley Tales – Nature, History and Stories will be a special audio trail within the Geotourist app which aims to highlight places of interest in and around Peebles.

Tweeddale residents and visitors to the area are invited to use the app to explore Peeblesshire this summer and give project leads an insight into how useful the app is to the local community.

Rich Rowe from Go Tweed Valley said: “We already have a fabulous Visitor Information Centre on Peebles High Street that’s a mine of information on things to see and do in the region, but we want to make sure that we’re keeping abreast of current developments in the industry by offering an additional way for tourists, day visitors and locals to discover more about the area.

"We’d greatly appreciate everyone’s help to test this new app, which tells stories that we believe have the potential to surprise and delight everyone who participates.”

Users of Tweed Valley Tales can discover more about the region during a visit or they can do so virtually from a different location.

They can also upload their own content and knowledge.

Some of the content already available on the app includes a guide to the 600m-long railway tunnel at Neidpath, the wooden sculpture of a First Nations figure at Dawyck Botanic Gardens, the Glentress meteorite and its Klingon inscription, and St Ronan's Wells.

Luke Fisher, Tweed Forum’s Destination Tweed project manager, said: “Technology is set to revolutionise future tourism, with multimedia experiences allowing destinations to inspire people to visit and visitors to personalise their journeys and immerse themselves in the stories of their surroundings.

"Through this pilot, we hope to discover how best to provide the information that visitors find most useful so that we can harness the latest technology to enable tourism in the region to thrive.

"It’s often surprising how much there is to discover about the places on our doorstep, so we hope local people will help us to test this free app and enjoy exploring the area at the same time.”

If the pilot scheme – which includes 19 other projects around Scotland – proves a success, the technology could be rolled out nationwide.

The Geotourist app is free to download and can be accessed at www.geotourist.com or by searching on your chosen app store.