My name is Jacques Lauber, I used to live in Clarens-Montreux, Switzerland, a few miles from the famous Castle of Chillon, with my partner Isabelle Billerey. We are part-time digital nomads, developing travel guides based on exclusive photos and panoramas.
Many years ago I was publishing "fusions MegaZine", a monthly music magazine in French-speaking Switzerland. In 1995, this magazine became the first Swiss media on the Internet. As a technology and science fiction enthusiast, I knew that the web would definitely change the world.
To support my cultural activities, I developed technical solutions and web promotion services. As culture and leisure are closely related, I became increasingly involved in the world of tourism and
www.fusions.ch progressively became a travel guide dedicated to Switzerland.
In 2008, I foresaw a new internet revolution, the mobile web. Smartphones were about to put the internet in users' pockets, transforming the world of tourism forever. I started to set up mobile versions of all the websites I was managing for my partners and my clients.
In 2010, with the help of Isabelle, I created a travel guide for mobile users,
www.iswitzerland.net. A website dedicated to Switzerland and nearby places, based on photos shot during our excursions around the country and across the border, supplemented by editorial articles and useful links.
We started to experiment the real-time management of websites during our travels, sometimes using only a simple smartphone. This is where the Cyclades Archipelago, in the Aegean Sea, started to play a very important role in all our developments.
We had been going to Greece every year since 2006, taking countless photos. In 2010 we created a photo blog day by day during a 3-week trip in the Cyclades, using only a smartphone as both a camera and a complete management tool. A first experience of extreme nomadic work.
The year 2010 was a peak of the Greek financial crisis. We decided to help promote the Cyclades by sharing our photos in a new section of
www.fusions.ch. Then we started to create iOS apps dedicated to Switzerland and to the Cyclades. And then we created
www.cyclades.mobi in 2014.
Since 2014 our Pictorial Guide of the Cyclades has continued to grow, through two annual trips. And as of 2018 it has started to go panoramic as part of our accreditation as Google Street View Trusted Photographers.
Then came the pandemic.
And with the lockdown a lot of free time to develop amazing new projects.
In 2017, we had experimented with a "virtual stroll" concept in Switzerland, which we had developed in 2018 in different islands of the Cyclades. A mix of Street View tracks and virtual tours of recommended local businesses (hotels, restaurants, and more).
In 2020 we opened
www.pictorialguides.com, entirely dedicated to 360° panoramas, regardless of borders.
Points of interest, virtual strolls, local businesses in 360°.
Between two pandemic waves, we grew this new website, first in the Swiss Alps and Pre-Alps in July and August, then in the Cyclades in September and October 2020.
It continued to grow in 2021, but only in Switzerland, during spring, summer and autumn, as the pandemic still did not allow free travel.
In 2022, we continued to grow the site, not only in Switzerland but also in the neighbouring regions of France, Italy, Germany and Austria as part of an original concept, the "Switzerland Tour Outside Switzerland"...
This expansion continued in 2023 with more than 1,400 new panoramas, all shot in Valais, the long valley nestled between two ranges of the Swiss Alps, where we have relocated since summer...
In 2024, we continued to concentrate mainly on the Valais, but with small diversions to France. Despite the catastrophic weather, we shot and broadcast over 1,100 new panoramas between April and September.
With more than 13,000 panoramas on Google Maps, Street View and Google Earth, which generate millions of views every month,
www.pictorialguides.com has become a unique and essential vector for promoting tourism.
