Challenges in the delivery of e-government through kiosks

Kiosks are increasingly being heralded as a technology through which governments, government departments and local authorities or municipalities can engage with citizens. In particular, they have attractions in their potential to bridge the digital divide. There is some evidence to suggest that the citizen uptake of kiosks and indeed other channels for e-government, such as web sites, is slow, although studies on the use of kiosks for health information provision offer some interesting perspectives on user behaviour with kiosk technology. This article argues that the delivery of e-government through kiosks presents a number of strategic challenges, which will need to be negotiated over the next few years in order that kiosk applications are successful in enhancing accessibility to and engagement with e-government. The article suggests that this involves consideration of: the applications to be delivered through a kiosk; one stop shop service and knowledge architectures; mechanisms for citizen identification; and, the integration of kiosks within the total interface between public bodies and their communities. The article concludes by outlining development and research agendas in each of these areas.</p

Kiosks 21: a new role for information kiosks?

Discusses and analyses the latest generation of information kiosks, Kiosks 21, which features information provision/promotion, interaction, transaction and relationships. In contrast to their task based predecessors, these kiosks focus on customer service delivery to ‘customers in context’. Five case studies of such kiosks located respectively in an airport, railway station, car rental base, hotel lobby, and shopping mall are analysed to demonstrate the way in which the kiosks are implemented to meet the differing requirements of customers in different contexts. Case studies are analysed in terms of kiosk design and location, user profile, information architecture, interface design, communication, and commerce. A range of areas for research and development are proposed.</p

Smart tourist information points by combining agents, semantics and AI techniques

The tourism sector in the province of Teruel (Aragon, Spain) is increasing rapidly. Although the number of domestic and foreign tourists is continuously growing, there are some tourist attractions spread over a wide geographical area, which are only visited by a few people at specific times of the year. Additionally, having human tourist guides everywhere and speaking different languages is unfeasible. An integrated solution based on smart and interactive Embodied Conversational Agents (ECAs) tourist guides combined with ontologies would overcome this problem. This paper presents a smart tourist information points approach which gathers tourism information about Teruel, structured according to a novel lightweight ontology built on OWL (Ontology Web Language), known as TITERIA (Touristic Information of TEruel for Intelligent Agents). Our proposal, which combines TITERIA with the Maxine platform, is capable of responding appropriately to the users thanks to its Artificial Intelligence Modeling Language (AIML) database and the AI techniques added to Maxine. Preliminary results indicate that our prototype is able to inform users about interesting topics, as well as to propose other related information, allowing them to acquire a complete information about any issue. Furthermore, users can directly talk with an artificial actor making communication much more natural and closer

Embracing self service technology for hotel productivity growth

This paper explores the various ways in which self-service technology (SST), if employed by the hotel industry, can actually contribute to the productivity growth in Singapore. The study provides an understanding of customer’s technology acceptance and readiness by utilizing the two widely extended and accepted approaches, Technology Readiness Index (TRI) and Technology acceptance model (TAM). The study also evaluated the four common self-service technology channels: electronic kiosks, the Internet, mobile devices, and the telephone applications. From an investigation on past studies, it is found that Singapore is receptive to self-service technology. Self-service technology thus could bring a highly respectable return on investment (ROI) to the Singapore’s hotel industry, as illustrated by ROI models in this paper. Moreover, hotels could leverage on a number of Singapore’s government funding to optimize their investment on SST. With the government’s master plan (iN2015) platform to realize the intelligent nation by 2015, hotels could benefit from the self service technology features that this platform is offering. Various avenues to ride on this platform and recommendations are featured

An Interpretivist Study Of Customer Self-Service Technology Usage And Experiences In The Tourism Sector.

This study provides an interpretivist exploration of customer usage and experiences of self-service technologies (SSTs) in the tourism sector. Tourism customers are increasingly using a wide range of SSTs, for example, to make reservations online and use self-check-in and „bag and tag‟ facilities at airports. While SST research to date has provided insights into the factors affecting customer SST adoption decisions, the aim of this study is to explore customers‟ perspectives on their usage and experiences of SSTs in the tourism sector. This interpretivist study employs a two-stage qualitative methodology of short qualitative interviews with 133 participants at an international airport, followed by 32 in-depth interviews with SST users in the tourism sector. Seven motivations for SST usage are identified in this research. Whilst motivations such as convenience and access to lower prices have received some research attention, three new motivations emerge in this research, namely forced usage, eco-friendliness and empathy for other customers. In addition, customer experiences of SSTs are explored through the lens of the value-in-experience concept. This approach illustrates whether SST usage creates value for the customer (e.g. a sense of accomplishment) or destroys value (e.g. a perception of lack of control over the SST encounter). Using the theoretical lens of Service-Dominant Logic, an analysis of SST experiences indicates that customers undertake a variety of SST roles, such as that of convenience seeker, motivated worker, enforced worker and judge. Some of these roles indicate that customers are often required to use SSTs by the tourism provider, and may not be given other options (e.g. personal encounter with employees). Similarly, customers often assume the role of partial employee, by working on behalf of the tourism provider, to assist other customers who experience SST difficulties. Therefore, it is asserted that from the user‟s point of view, SST usage is often imposed upon customers, as opposed to being offered as an option, thus challenging the traditional customer-centricity of the marketing paradigm, as proposed by the Service-Dominant Logic. A key contribution of this study is the development and examination of a model of SST usage, which illustrates the complex, nuanced and often contradictory nature of a customer‟s usage and experiences. This model may facilitate marketers, managers and policy makers in planning strategic service interventions to enhance value creation in SST usage and ensure successful implementation of SSTs in the tourism sector and the wider services sector

Opening new dimensions for e-Tourism

In this paper we describe an e-Tourism environment that takes a community-driven approach to foster a lively society of travelers who exchange travel experiences, recommend tourism destinations or just listen to catch some interesting gossip. Moreover, business transactions such as booking a trip or getting assistance from travel advisors or community members are constituent parts of this environment. All these happen in an integrated, game-like e-Business application where each e-Tourist is impersonated as an avatar. More precisely, we apply 3D Electronic Institutions, a framework developed and employed in the area of multi-agent systems, to the tourism domain. The system interface is realized by means of a 3D game engine that provides sophisticated 3D visualization and enables humans to interact with the environment. We present "itchy feet", a prototype implementing this 3D e-Tourism environment to showcase first visual impressions. This new environment is a perfect research playground for examining heterogeneous societies comprising humans and software agents, and their relationship in e-Tourism. © Springer-Verlag London Limited 2006

Experiences with RFID-Based Interactive Learning in Museums

Tourism plays an important role in the economies of many countries. Tourism can secure employment, foreign exchange earnings, investment and regional development. To attract more tourists and local visitors, many stakeholders such as natural parks, museums, art galleries, hotels and restaurants provide personalised services to meet individual needs. With the increasing number of tourists comes an increased demand for guides at education-oriented leisure centers. Each provided needs unique way to present their services. In this study, these educational leisure centres are coarsely divided into art and science. This paper introduces the architecture of the proposed guide system including a PDA-based recommendation guide for art museums and an Radiofrequency identification-based interactive learning system using collaborative filtering technology for science and engineering education. Evaluations of the two systems reveal that the system inspires and nurtures visitors’ interest in science and arts

Retailing in Electronic Commerce: Travel and Tourism Services Online

In recent years, the emergence of new tourism services and products, coupled with a rapid increase in tourism demand, have driven the wide-scale adoption of ITs in general, and in particular, the Internet as an electronic intermediary. In other words, the Internet serves as a new communication and distribution channel for e-travelers and suppliers of travel services and products. This new channel also enables tourism businesses to improve their competitiveness and performance. The aim of this paper is to highlight how retailing in e-commerce (travel tourism service online) according to the experts is, special services, such as wireless services, direct marketing, alliances and consortia, benefits and limitation of travel online service, the impact of EC on the travel industry, corporate travel and intelligent agents in travel services