Smartphone Augmented Reality Applications for Tourism

Invisible, attentive and adaptive technologies that provide tourists with relevant services and information anytime and anywhere may no longer be a vision from the future. The new display paradigm, stemming from the synergy of new mobile devices, context-awareness and AR, has the potential to enhance tourists’ experiences and make them exceptional. However, effective and usable design is still in its infancy. In this publication we present an overview of current smartphone AR applications outlining tourism-related domain-specific design challenges. This study is part of an ongoing research project aiming at developing a better understanding of the design space for smartphone context-aware AR applications for tourists

A framework to support the tourist’s information-needs based on a ubiquitous approach

Nowadays, tourists are increasingly thirsty for information on anything that surrounds him. With the Information Communication Technologies (ICT) evolution that supports the ubiquity, it is necessary to rethink the available models of information and services to tourists. With the evolution of mobile devices, with wireless access, together with the decreasing of the network traffic costs and with the increasing number of access points of wireless access, becomes more common and attractive. Therefore, in this paper we present an analysis of the state of the art of the support applications for tourists for mobile environments, setting them according to the development technologies. In addition, it is also presented a suitable framework to support the tourist’s needs based on a ubiquitous approach

Supporting Tourists at the Bomarsund Fortress with a Mobile Value Service

The future competitive advantages for a successful tourism industry will most probably be built around effective mobile value services. Mobile value services create customer value with the support of mobile technology, a support which should be context-adapted and user-adaptive; this in turn will help to form new routines for tourists who will miss the service if they are not available. This will then create a market for mobile value services. In this paper we describe the development of a mobile guide service which is aimed at supporting tourists at the fortress of Bomarsund - one of the most important attractions on the Aland islands –which cannot be seen as it was completely destroyed during the Crimean War in 1854. We developed and implemented a tourist guide for mobile phones which tells the story of the fortress from different angles as the tourists walk through the ruins. We argue and show that the mobile tourist guide is a mobile value service and that it provides some useful lessons of general significance for building mobile value services

Conceptual model of mobile augmented reality for cultural heritage site towards enjoyable informal learning (Marchsteil)

A mobile augmented reality (AR) is one of the emerging technologies that may provide interactive content to tourists at cultural heritage sites. Past studies show enjoyable informal learning experience is highly needed for tourists to broaden knowledge for tourists. Although many mobile AR applications have been developed to expose cultural heritage site information, they are still lacking in providing such experience due to lack of comprehensive models which taking into consideration the elements of enjoyable informal learning experience in the development of such applications. Therefore, this study proposes a comprehensive conceptual model of mobile AR where it considers the components of enjoyable informal learning experience at cultural heritage site. This study followed design science research methodology. The proposed conceptual model is reviewed and validated through expert review and focus group discussion The review was analysed based on frequency of the responses on each component. As a proof-of-concept, the prototype (named as AR@Melaka) was developed and then evaluated on its enjoyable informal learning aspects to 200 tourists of a renowned cultural heritage site. From user perspective, it is proven that AR@Melaka provides enjoyable informal learning. In conclusion, these findings proved that the conceptual model is useful for assisting tourists in learning at cultural heritage site in an enjoyable way. This study contributes a conceptual model to serve as guidelines for developing a mobile augmented reality that considers an enjoyable informal learning component

PERANCANGAN APLIKASI MOBILE CITY DIRECTORY YOGYAKARTA BERBASIS ANDROID

Yogyakarta adalah kota yang mempunyai banyak predikat yang mempunyai banyak tempat yang bisa dikunjungi oleh wisatawan. Namun tidak semua tempat di Yogyakarta diketahui oleh wisatawan karena kurangnya informasi. Sehingga dibutuhkan layanan berbasis lokasi untuk dapat memberikan informasi yang dapat diakses kapan dan dimanapun penggunanya berada. Atas dasar tersebut, maka aplikasi mobile city directory berbasis android ini dirancang. Aplikasi ini akan mengakses google maps untuk menampilkan peta lokasi tempat yang dicari, lokasi pengguna yang diperoleh dari pengaksesan satelit melalui GPS serta informasi yang berkaitan dengan tempat yang dipilih oleh pengguna. Dengan adanya aplikasi mobile city directory Yogyakarta berbasis android ini diharapkan kebutuhan informasi akan tempat wisata dan tempat menarik lainnya di Yogyakarta dapat terpenuhi

Different Geovisualization Solutions in Presenting Geoinformation for Tourist Purposes

U radu su dani znanstveni pregled, usporedba i kritika dosadašnjih radova o kartografskim prikazima i oblicima geovizualizacije na malim ekranima PDA-uređaja. Virtualna okruženja su svakodnevica za prosječnoga korisnika, te se još uvijek vode znanstvene rasprave o 2D prikazu ili 3D kartografskom prikazu na PDA-uređajima, zbog ograničenja koja imaju. Prikazani su znanstveni projekti i doktorske disertacije s prijedlozima geovizualizacijskih rješenja PDA-uređaja. Vidljivo je da ponekad takva rješenja nisu zaživjela u komercijalnim softverskim paketima koji su ponuđeni turistima. Znanstveni projekti i znanstveni radovi koji se bave takvim temama pojavljuju se sve više i svi su novijeg datuma, međutim primjećuje se da se vrlo malo bave pitanjima o tome jesu li ponuđena rješenja pogodna unutar mobilnog okruženja, a više se bave tehnologijom i problemom ograničenja te tehnologije i pritom se pažnja ne usmjerava na grafičku kvalitetu i jasnoću prikaza.The paper offers the presentation of scientific approach with examination, comparison and review in past activities in map presentation and geovisualization design forms for small PDA screens. Virtual environments are everyday experience for ordinary users, but we still have scientific discussions about 2D or 3D map presentation on PDA because of their limitations. We present here scientific projects, masters and doctoral dissertations, industrial solutions and todays commercial geovisualization solutions and geovisualization solutions for PDAs recommended there. One can see that some of the solutions are not applied in commercial softwares offered to tourists. Recent scientific projects and works with such themes seem to have a little or no interest for the questions about whether offered solutions are suitable within the mobile environment, but are concentrated instead on technology and problems of limitations of this technology paying much less attention to graphic quality and clearness of presentation