The tour brings you to the North End, to a nondescript brick building washed out and weathered with white-framed windows.
”Picture this now,” says one of your guides, Robert Fitzpatrick, former chief of the FBI’s organized crime squad in Boston. ”It’s Jan. 19, 1981, and the streets are empty, cold wind blowing down. Two guys, a gal coming down the street, and they’re both swigging whiskey. They hop up these stairs, and they pick that lock and then bang, we’re inside. And just like that. Imagine that, FBI agents were now in Mafia headquarters.”
This is no bus tour. It’s MP3 — downloadable, mod, off the beaten track. Some say it’s the future of the tourism industry, a new-age take on an age-old tradition.
For decades, Boston’s tours have been a staple for a city steeped in rich history. The steel duck boats and trolleys quickly distinguish locals from visitors. But some tour companies say the conventional group-follow-the-leader routine isn’t selling well with the younger set, which is less inclined to sightsee with a horde of strangers.
So how do you make historical tours more hip? Just add an MP3 player, some companies have concluded. New audio tours allow individuals to explore without looking like daytrippers.
”Every tour in Boston is made by old people,” said Rob Pyles, who launched his audio tour, Audissey Guides, in September. ”Younger people want something that’s dynamic and edgy. They don’t want to look like a tourist in a big herd.”
In his Audissey Guides tour, Pyles narrates and Bostonians interject with dramatic tales of history while guiding listeners to 27 sites, beginning in Boston Common and ending at Long Wharf. The 78-minute course includes covered cobblestone walkways and shadowy back alleys. The music and sound effects make the experience feel like a virtual movie.
At the Omni Parker House Hotel restaurant, for example, the sounds of hushed conversations, clinking glasses. and a speech by Malcolm X, who bused tables there in the ’40s, are in the background. A horse gallops and a bell tolls when you’re standing at the old brown clapboard home in North Square where Paul Revere lived.
Tourism officials say many are going to have to update if they are to attract the 18- to 27-year-olds, who are less likely to be interested in the old ways of seeing sites.
”That’s not how they live their lives,” said Patrick B. Moscaritolo, the chief executive officer at the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau, a nonprofit sales, marketing, and promotional agency that brings visitors and special events to the Boston area. ”Young people today are doing five things all at the same time. They’ve grown up with Game Boys and MTV and text messaging. If we don’t engage them on their terms, then we run the risk of losing them as visitors.”
