The Tower of David Museum in Jerusalem received the bronze medal for the Virtual Tour of the Tower of David as part of the closing ceremony of the International AVICOM Conference held in Budapest this month. The 360 degree audio virtual tour shows the breathtaking views of Jerusalem, the magnificently restored citadel as well as a tour inside the guard rooms that shows the permanent exhibition of the history of Jerusalem.



The tour allows visitors to get a taste of the Tower of David from the comfort of their own home while exploring the panoramic views, the archaeology and explore the story of Jerusalem that traces back some 3000 years. The technology enables the Museum, an archaeological site and a national heritage site, to reach out to people all over the world and to allow them to visit the Tower of David from afar. It allows people that might never be able to come to Jerusalem, to experience Jerusalem and explore the history of the city. It can help a school pupil who is writing about Jerusalem or inspire an enthusiastic pilgrim who lives in a village far away.

The Tower of David Museum was the only Israeli entry, in fact the only entry from the Middle East. The Tower of David Museum opened a wide range of activities for the independent traveler in January 2015 that allows visitors to enjoy an enhanced visit to the Tower of David Museum with the use of apps that can be downloaded, embedded augmented reality games for children on ipads, augmented reality guided tours for adults on tablets, QR driven guided tours for adults and QR driven treasure hunts for children. The virtual tour is part of the new mobile website that was launched also in January 2015.

The challenge in creating the audio virtual tour at the Tower of David Museum was trying to combine the magnificent location together with 3000 years of history with the desire to give the visitor a first-hand experience of exploring the citadel with 23 panoramic views.

In March 2016, the Tower of David Museum is hosting a conference that will be the first conference in Israel to look at the digital options and technology within the Museum world.

AVICOM, established in June 1991, is the International Committee for Audiovisual and New Image and Sound Technologies, one of the international committees of the International Council of Museums (ICOM). The aim of the conference was to share and discuss the perspectives and trends of modern digital museums and museum, library and archives digitization regarding the future plans of this field.