Enhancing the Visitor Experience in the time of COVID 19: The use of AI Robotics in Pembrokeshire Coastal Pathway

AI and Robots represent a major innovation opportunity for the tourism sector, and their potential impact and application offer several new opportunities to enhance and develop the visitor experience. Nevertheless, there has been limited academic research on the use of robots, together with a limited number of destinations embracing this technology. Focusing on the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path, this research paper outlines how a multi methodological approach could be utilised to examine the use of AI and robotics in helping to enhance the visitor experience during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The researchers anticipate that outcomes from such a study could not only provide theoretical contributions in the area of addressing concerns about accessibility in tourism and leisure settings, but also serve to inform both academia and the wider tourism industry to the benefits such technology can have towards enhancing the visitor experience within social distancing parameters

Smart technologies for personalized experiences: a case study in the hospitality domain

Recent advances in the field of technology have led to the emergence of innovative technological smart solutions providing unprecedented opportunities for application in the tourism and hospitality industry.With intensified competition in the tourism market place, it has become paramount for businesses to explore the potential of technologies, not only to optimize existing processes but facilitate the creation of more meaningful and personalized services and experiences. This study aims to bridge the current knowledge gap between smart technologies and experience personalization to understand how smart mobile technologies can facilitate personalized experiences in the context of the hospitality industry. By adopting a qualitative case study approach, this paper makes a two-fold contribution; it a) identifies the requirements of smart technologies for experience creation, including information aggregation, ubiquitous mobile connectedness and real time synchronization and b) highlights how smart technology integration can lead to two distinct levels of personalized tourism experiences. The paper concludes with the development of a model depicting the dynamic process of experience personalization and a discussion of the strategic implications for tourism and hospitality management and research

Twenty-Five Years of Word-of-Mouth Studies: A Critical Review of Tourism Research

It has been 25 years that the topic of word of mouth (WOM) related to the tourism industry has been addressed in top-level marketingjournals. However, there has not yet been a thorough synthesis of the articles, nor has there been an analysis of the approach and the directionthe research has taken. This article will try to address that deficiency, collecting and analysing 25 five years of research following thisstream, utilizing a literature review technique known as the paradigm funne

Impacts of Peer-to-Peer Accommodation Use on Travel Patterns

As a result of the phenomenal growth of the sharing economy in the travel industry, investigating its potential impacts on travelers and tourism destinations is of paramount importance. The goal of this study was to identify how the use of peer-to-peer accommodation leads to changes in travelers’ behavior. Based on two online surveys targeting travelers from the United States and Finland, it was identified that the social and economic appeals of peer-to-peer accommodation significantly affect expansion in destination selection, increase in travel frequency, length of stay, and range of activities participated in tourism destinations. Travelers’ desires for more meaningful social interactions with locals and unique experiences in authentic settings drive them to travel more often, stay longer, and participate in more activities. Also, the reduction in accommodation cost allows travelers to consider and select destinations, trips, and tourism activities that are otherwise cost-prohibitive. Implications for tourism planning and management are provided

Tourists’ Attitudes toward Proactive Smartphone Systems

In order to ensure the effectiveness of context-based proactive recommendations in influencing tourist behavior, it is important to understand the factors that drive tourists’ inclination to adopt push recommendations from mobile devices. A projective method was applied to tap into tourists’ opinions and feelings about their smartphones as intelligent agents, and how these influence their attitudes toward push recommendations they receive while experiencing tourist destinations. While smartphones have a mediating role in the tourism experience, a paradox exists in which tourists recognize an enhancement in certain aspects of a travel experience and a reduction in others. Confidence toward proactive recommendations is largely rooted in perceived proactiveness, autonomy, social ability and intelligence of smartphones, while perceived reactivity and control lead tourists to fear that they will lose control over their tourism experiences. Several managerial implications are provided

The Co-creation Process of the Online Image of an Italian World Heritage Site: The Sassi of Matera

This paper investigates the co-creation process of the online image of the Italian World Heritage Site \u201cSassi of Matera\u201d, which has been inscribed among UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1993. Despite the recent increasing success of the destination, Matera still lacks a strong online communication. To date, the Sassi of Matera have not a dedicated website for the promotion of the UNESCO heritage itself, while other online stakeholders are co-creating its online communication. The case study has been examined to provide an example of how the main stakeholders of a destination can contribute to the co-creation of its online image: hospitality industry, destination players, and user generated content (UGC) through the online word-of-mouth. Content analysis has been performed, revealing the main arguments expressed about the site, and the coverage of the UNESCO label among the concerned online publishers. The theoretical and managerial implications are discussed in the study