19 February 2010: Walking Past Audio Tours Available Inside GO-STOW 
Stow-on-the-Wold, GLOS 19 February 2010 – Walking Past has announced that beginning March 1st 2010, its audio tours of Stow-on-the-Wold will be available for hire inside GO-STOW, the new tourist information centre located in Talbot Court.
Previously, visitors could either hire an audio player directly from Walking Past, download a tour from the company’s website, or hear selected chapters from the audio tours using their mobile phones. This new option gives anyone going into the new tourist information centre a chance to see what the tours are about and hire an audio player right then and there.
“We’re ideally suited to offer these audio tours in our tourist information centre,” says Sue Hasler, owner of GO-STOW. “We’re open every day of the week, we have excellent footfall and are naturally the first place many visitors seek out when they arrive in Stow.”
“It’s a true win-win arrangement for both parties,” says Walking Past co-founder Richard Edwards. “It exposes our audio tours to a much wider audience, and because many of our customers will have already heard about Walking Past through their hotel or B&B, we expect it will also drive further traffic through GO-STOW’s doors.”
GO-STOW is open 10am-5pm Monday through Saturday, 11am-4pm Sunday. They are located at 12 Talbot Court, Stow on the Wold and can be reached at 01451 870 150. For more information about Walking Past audio tours visit www.walkingpast.co.uk or call the tour booking line at 0788 407 1028.
21 October 2009: Walking Past Launches "Call-to-Listen"STOW-ON-THE-WOLD, Gloucestershire, 21 October 2009 – Following its successful launch last month, local startup Walking Past has introduced a “call-to-listen” option for its audio tours of Stow-on-the-Wold.
Visitors previously had two ways to hear Walking Past audio tours: by hiring an audio player pre-loaded with the tour of their choice, or by downloading a tour directly from the Walking Past website for use on their own audio player. This third “call-to-listen” option allows visitors to hear selected chapters from the audio tours using their mobile phones.
“The audio tours have been very popular among visitors and locals alike,” says Walking Past co-founder Richard Edwards. “And the new call-to-listen option makes these fantastic stories about Stow available to people who might not have time to do a full audio tour, or who want to sample a chapter before downloading a full tour.” They are, he says, perfect if you’re waiting for a friend in one of the pubs or cafes and want to hear about the stocks, the Battle of Stow or the market cross. An added bonus is that with “call-to-listen,” visitors can enjoy these stories even in the middle of winter when the weather isn’t always ideal for a walking tour.
The call-to-listen option features 18 chapters pulled from three Walking Past self-guided audio tours: the Stow Town tour, Ghastly Stow, and Lower Swell Loop. A full list of “call-to-listen” chapters with phone numbers and descriptions can be found at www.walkingpast.co.uk/call-to-listen.html
For a complete Walking Past audio tour experience, visitors can call 0788 407 1028 to hire an audio player pre-loaded with the tour of their choice, or they can download a tour to their own mp3 player at or www.walkingpast.co.uk.
12 September 2009: New Startup Launches in Stow-on-the-Wold
STOW-ON-THE-WOLD, Gloucestershire, 12 September 2009 - A new business has started up in Stow-on-the-Wold, aimed at serving the needs of visitors and attracting additional tourists to the town.
Walking Past, Ltd., formed by four local residents, has compiled a series of professionally-recorded audio tours highlighting the history, folklore, architecture and geology of Stow and the surrounding area. Visitors can take a stroll and hear narrated stories about the town and its history at certain points throughout the walk. They have the option of either hiring an easy-to-use audio player from Walking Past, or purchasing tours to download directly onto their own audio players. A third option is to take a guided tour, available for groups of eight or more by special arrangement.
The Walking Past tours currently include “Ghastly Stow,” where visitors can meet some of Stow’s ghosts and learn about its more gruesome past; a “Town” tour that ventures beyond Stow’s guidebooks; and a “Lower Swell Loop” which is a peaceful countryside walk to the pretty village of Lower Swell and back. Further tours are in the works for 2010.
“Our goal is to make information about Stow more accessible to visitors, while also providing an element of entertainment,” says co-founder and long time resident James Stubbs. “Much of the visitor information you see about Stow, whether it’s online or in print, actually directs people away from Stow, sometimes to attractions as far away as Cheltenham or Stratford-upon-Avon. We’d like to give visitors a reason to stay in Stow a bit longer and satisfy their curiosity about the area.” It will, he says, help visitors establish a connection with Stow and give them a special way to remember their visit to the town.
“I always see tourists around town who are interested in Stow and who clearly want to know more,” says co-founder Clare Stubbs. “The guidebooks and other information currently on offer are good, but it’s a lot to digest when you’re on holiday. Tourists today don’t often have a lot of time in one location; they want a more consumer-friendly option that will allow them to get the most out of their visit.”
And the best part, says co-founder Richard Edwards, is that local businesses also stand to benefit from this endeavour. “Not only are we highlighting the history of some of these old buildings, prompting visitors to patronise the shops and restaurants that stand there today,” he says, “but any local pub, bed and breakfast, hotel or holiday cottage will also benefit simply by being able to provide their guests with more things to do in Stow.” Local businesses have been extremely supportive of this new venture; leaflets for Walking Past tours are already in thirty local establishments.
contact us
Richard Edwards has more than a decade of financial management, commercial and operational experience working with technology and new media firms. He’s thrived in tiny start-up environments as well as in large multinational organisations such as Hewlett-Packard and Yahoo. Richard handles the commercial side of Walking Past including its commission program, franchising and business development as well as doing research and being our main point of contact for our "Friends of Walking Past" program.
Amy Edwards started her marketing career at a small digital mapping company, back when in-car Sat Nav was in its infancy and when the A to Z was more popular than a TomTom. She’s worked with a number of Silicon Valley companies, including Cisco Systems, SGI, and a variety of start-ups. Amy’s been self-employed for the past decade, offering writing, marketing and strategic communications services to companies in the UK and America. In addition to writing the tours and tag-teaming with Richard on the research, Amy handles all marketing and web development for Walking Past.
Four entrepreneurs from Stow-on-the-Wold have set up a new business to help visitors and increase tourism in the town. Husband and wife teams Richard and Amy Edwards along with Clare and James Stubbs have set up the enterprise called Walking Past Ltd which launched on Saturday (September 12).
Visitors can step back in time with a new venture at Stow-on-the-Wold. Walking Past has been launched by four residents in a bid to attract tourists and boost local businesses. 
