The increasing use of a variety of new and developing technologies presents a number of challenges and opportunities for both tourism management and research. One area that has been given little research attention is the role of technology in creating and enhancing tourist experiences. This paper reports on a study of this aspect of tourism and technology which had the dual aims of providing practical advice for the design of technology-based experiences at tourist attractions, and of exploring the potential role of mindfulness as a construct to explain and predict tourist behaviour. The study involved a grounded theory analysis of positive critical incidents related to memorable technology and non technology based experiences. The results suggested that mindfulness was a useful explanatory construct for both types of tourist experiences, although the pathways to mindfulness differed between the technology and non technology-based options. For the technology-based examples mindfulness appeared to be based on the ability of the attraction to offer new and multiple perspectives on a topic, the stimulation of multiple senses and ability of the technology to create a complete illusion. For the non-technology based examples mindfulness was associated with living things, authenticity and closeness. In both cases the concept of immersion appears to be important, although that perception is supported by different characteristics. Implications are drawn for both tourist attraction design and the use of mindfulness in tourism research
