Tnooz hit Russia last week for a three-day trip and had the opportunity to visit the fantastic Erarta in St Petersburg - a contemporary art museum and gallery.
Museums use lots of tricks these days to engage audiences in art and generally get it talked about - think Nintendo 3DS at the Louvre - and Erarta is no different.
The museum has adopted the QR code to disseminate further information about artists and their works but it doesn't stop there.
When a visitor scans the code they're directed to a landing page for that piece of art with an image to show they're in the right place and the ability to choose what language to view the information in.
They also get a menu with four options currently, including 'biography' with details about the artist and 'second name' enabling users to suggest an alternative name for the work.
Next comes 'art-literature' allowing anyone to write a few lines, in essay or poetry format, about what they see, how they feel about it etc
Then, if Erarta likes what they've written they publish it for all to share which, says Vadim Varvarin, president of the Erarta Fund:
"Helps all our guests build more of a personal connection to contemporary art."
The fourth and final option is 'Take Home' where the museum's workshop creates a reproduction of the work of art to any scale so the user can own it.
So, maybe instead of binning QR codes as a gimmick, there can be some real value for travel and tourism and a bigger picture (if you'll pardon the pun).
The screenshot below shows what users see:
NB: Disclosure - author was on a press trip organised by Travelport.