Category Archives: Tourism

IFITT Doctoral Summer School Update

by marie

1. The IFITT Doctoral Summer School costs only 30 Euros for IFITT members and BU Students

2. The submission deadline for the abstracts has been extended to May 13!

–> Submission is highly recommended as you will extremely benefit from useful suggestions by experienced researchers for your research project!

Please submit at: https://www.easychair.org/account/signin.cgi?conf=ifittsw20

3. If you do not have the chance to submit an abstract you can also just attend the event!

Remember! The IFITT Doctoral Summer School is a great opportunity to discuss your research topic. Attendance will provide you with great advantages, especially if you are in the process of writing a Masters or PhD Thesis. Moreover, the event will give you a good chance to network with other researchers and speakers from across the globe.

For information about the Summer School please look at http://www.ifitt.org/home/view/summer_school#TimeSchedule

IFITT and the eTourism Lab are looking forward to meeting you soon!

Augmented Reality in Tourism: 10 Best Practices

by Barbara Neuhofer

The Digital Tourism Think Tank focuses on best practice by providing a programme of best practice reports and case studies based on SE1 Media’s own research and knowledge resources. See: http://thinkdigital.travel/best-practice/

The latest report featured Prof Dimitrios Buhalis and Zornitza Yovcheva from the BU eTourismLab about Augmented Reality in Tourism.

With the release of powerful smartphone devices, and more recently Google’s project Glass, Augmented Reality (AR) quickly became the new buzz word. The technology allows combining seamlessly physical world and virtual information, but is still widely under-utilised in the field of Tourism. This report presents 10 highly innovative AR experiences that showcase the potential of the technology to revolutionise the way we experience new destinations and services within the industry.

This report looks at the following best practices:

  1. An Enhanced Booking Experience
  2. Museum Interactivity
  3. AR Browsers in the Destination
  4. Responsive Experience Through Gaming
  5. Services in the Restaurant
  6. Re-living Historic Life and Events
  7. The Hotel Experience
  8. Transportation
  9. Accessibility and Translation
  10. Participative Destination Management

 

Access the full report here: DOWNLOAD REPORT

BU eTourismLab hosts IFITT Doctoral Summer School at Bournemouth University from 8-9 July 2013

by Barbara Neuhofer

IFITT Doctoral Summer School: Vision of eTourism

Bournemouth University, July, 8th-9th 2013

 


Hosted by the eTourism Lab at Bournemouth University, this first edition of the IFITT Summer Doctoral Summer School aims to bring together the future eTourism researchers for a two-day unconventional workshop on a variety of cutting edge eTourism topics.

The IFITT Doctoral Summer School provides all participants a unique platform for knowledge and idea exchange in the field of Travel and Tourism technologies and a great opportunity to network with early career researchers and speakers from across the globe. The Summer School will provide inspirational and practical insights on the current and future technological trends. Early-career researchers will familiarise with various research methodologies and will be introduced to the world of academic journal editors. Parallel sessions will help in sharing and discussing research ideas, and will provide participants with valuable and topic-specific feedback on their research.

Chairs: Alessandro Inversini and Barbara Neuhofer
Research Chairs: Carlos Lasmfus, Sofia Reino, Anastasia Mariussen
Host: Dimitrios Buhalis, BU eTourism Lab
Social Programme: Barbara Neuhofer and Nicolas Gregori

 

*** CALL FOR ABSTRACTS ***

In order to take part in the parallel sessions participants will be asked to submit a short abstract (500-800 words – See call for abstracts for details). Accepted abstracts will be assembled in an online publication “Letters from IFITT Doctoral School 2013”.

Call for abstracts: http://tinyurl.com/cdkld7y

Time Schedule

  • Submission closes: May 1st 2013
  • Acceptance: May 30th 2013
  • Registration: June 2013
  • Summer School: 8-9 July 2013

 

*** REGISTRATION ***

To register, please your abstract according to the deadlines indicated above. Upon successful acceptance we will send you a confirmation of registration.

http://ifitt-summerschool.eventbrite.co.uk/

Costs for registration:

  • 30 euros for IFITT members
  • 150 euros for non members (IFITT Student Membership 30 euros)

 

*** PROGRAMME***

Download the programme

 

Content, context, co-creation and other eTourism predictions for the next 20 years

by Barbara Neuhofer

This article by Prof. Dimitrios Buhalis, Director eTourismLab appeared on Tnooz.com

Predicting technology is a thankless task, as it changes dramatically. It becomes more complex when trying to apply it to the tourism and travel industry; an industry that is extremely volatile, fragmented and dynamic.

Nevertheless at the eTourism Lab of Bournemouth University, the team is developing a range of Information Communication Technology (ICT) solutions that will engage the most cutting edge technology with the most innovative strategic management and marketing techniques in the tourism marketplace.

It is evident that the world is going to be totally interactive, using personalisation, context information and a variety of inter-connected devices to facilitate dynamic interaction. These are some of the predictions emerging through this research.

Social Transformation

Two major trends can be observed in the generation change. First, Generation X (Gen X, baby boomers born after 1950), which in 2010 had already reached 21% of the world’s population, becomes more active and enjoys travelling in their newly found leisure time. This generation is also known as ‘digital travellers’ making use of new technologies in all stages of the customer journey (mobile devices, tablets, desktop PCs etc.).

The other rising trend is ‘digital natives’ (20th century kids) growing up with technology and interacting with digital technology from early stages in all lifetime situations. Therefore, the increasing adoption of ICT by consumers will be a catalyst for changes in the tourism industry as well as for the development of sustainable strategies and lead to a competitive advantage within the market sector. This as a result, brings transparency, cocreation and interoperability in the marketplace.

Customer Co-Creation

Through extended value chains and co-creation between organisations and consumers as well as consumers with each other, the new tourism industry is evolving to one that is based on engagement and value added services, all amalgamated due to technology. Value in tourism is co-created by tourists themselves, as they engage in meaningful interactions and relationships not only with the tourism provider but also with each other. Technology will provide increasingly crucial tools that will support and facilitate tourists’ co-creation processes.

Tourism enhanced-experience with ICT

Creation of meaningful and memorable experiences constitutes a key concept in today’s tourism industry. Integrating emerging technologies in consumers’ everyday lives and travel activities will be critical in order to facilitate successful tourism experiences throughout all stages and touch points of travel. Research will deliver key knowledge of how to strategically use technology as a source of innovation, strategic differentiation and competitive advantage.

The tourism industry will benefit from creating high-touch technology-enhanced tourism experiences in the future by empowering customer co-creation, one-to-one engagement and personalisation.

Content & Context

Content will still be ‘king’ in the future as it is essential to convince potential tourists. However content presentation and amalgamation will change fundamentally. The power of pictures transmitting authentic experiences made in a tourism destination, hotel or any tourism attraction is what tourists are striving for.

Videos and increasingly interactive videos will also be of critical importance to demonstrate the experience and narrate the story. For tourism players, it will be more essential than ever to build up a strong online marketing strategy to (re-)position the brand on the web and at the same time meet the customer’s needs. Consumer generated context will be so much more powerful and convincing.

Therefore, a two-pronged strategy will be vital. On the one hand it will be needed to spread media rich data on different social media channels/platforms and on the other, to curate user-generated content on the tourism organisation platform and enrich it with unique content to make it more valuable and personalised.

New features such as private cloud computing, internet TV and face/pattern/image recognition will provide more exciting ways for interaction and visualisation.

Social Media, Location Based and Mobile (SoLoMo) Marketing

SoLoMo marketing is increasingly becoming a critical and pivotal tool for tourism marketing. It combines social media, location and context based marketing as well as mobile devices. Interactions are no longer bound by the constraints of stationary computers, as they are becoming digital real-time experiences at a physical location. SoLoMo represents a powerful opportunity in the field of social commerce, allowing marketers to serve better today’s multi-channel, multi-experience consumer.

Service of Now and Real Time

Enabled by social media and mobile internet devices, travellers are sharing their experiences, opinions and sentiments about products and brands during the consumption stage. Therefore, monitoring the social media sphere, and responding to or proactively engaging with the customer, becomes critical for competitiveness. This includes instant adaptation and personalization of services, immediate recovery of service failures and pro-active development of customer surprises and delights on the spot; all based on real-time social media input. This so-called ‘Service of Now’ concept will require employees across the company to drive social media engagement.

The industry will see a shift towards greater agility and flexibility of service operations, flattening of corporate hierarchies and increasing empowerment of front-line employees.

Augmented Reality and Gaming

Together with NOW, enhancing the environment with highly relevant, personalized and contextualized content is a fundamental to creating meaningful and unique destination experiences. Intelligent, location-based and context-aware Augmented Reality (AR) information systems are a key in realizing this vision. AR has the potential to augment a number of important activities, as well as different types of environments (hotels, parks, airports) and services (entertainment, education). Further research will deliver fundamental knowledge regarding the successful design, development and implementation of effective AR information services which disappear in the background but at the same time are constantly aware about the needs, motivations and attitudes of tourists.

In this context, mobile gaming will also play an important role providing the opportunity to immerse the tourist on-site throughout exciting storytelling and role-playing, challenges and social interaction with other players. AR in combination with gaming will open more opportunities for tourists and visitors: to engage with a destination and its history, architecture, heritage and traditions; to interact not only with the physical surroundings but also with other people (residents and visitors). By challenging the player throughout the destination visit, an AR gameplay can merge the virtual and physical worlds and enhance the tourist experience in a fun and enjoyable, but more importantly memorable and unique way.

Online reputation and E-Branding

The internet has transformed brand management in travel and tourism. To a large extent, it has shifted the brand creation that for so many years worked in favour of brand managers. However, with the interactive power of social media, more business to consumer, consumer to consumer engagements and dialogues are further encouraged.

Successful brand management in Web 2.0 is not conducted by brand managers alone, but instead co-created through on-going interactions among brand users so that establishing a common understanding of the brand concept. Stories about travel brands, products and services that are posting and sharing by travellers in social media create a central concern for tourism providers who try to manage their online reputation. Successful online reputation management in Web 2.0 and social media, require tourism providers to carefully curate the content available in their own platforms, for instance, official website in Facebook and Twitter, regularly monitoring content, and systematically monitoring all forms of social media such as third party online review websites.

It is evident that the world is moving real fast, with interconnectivity between systems, proximity marketing and context driving a range of these changes. However it is critical to remember that it is not about technology but about value generated, packaged and delivered to the right customer, at the right place, at the right time, and at the right price. Technology enables the interactivity, engagement and co-creation of this but it is fundamental to focus on the needs of the consumer, co-create the experience and ensure that all stakeholders work in harmony together. A small task considering the challenges, unpredictability and dynamic nature of both tourism and technology.

Barbara Neuhofer of the BU eTourismLab presents at the CAUTHE Conference 2013

by Barbara Neuhofer

 

PhD Researcher, Barbara Neuhofer has just returned from presenting at the CAUTHE Conference 2013 in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Barbara presented her paper that she co-authored with Professor Dimitrios Buhalis and Professor Adele Ladkin, titled “Experiences, Co-creation and Technology: A conceptual approach to enhance tourism experiences” at the conference.

Back in November, Barbara was awarded the PGR Development Scheme Funding by the Graduate School at Bournemouth University. This funding meant she had the opportunity to travel to New Zealand to attend the conference and present her paper.

Barbara commented “It was a highly beneficial conference and a great chance for me to share my PhD research, meet new academics, engage and extend my academic network to key universities and institutions in the Australasian region.

Overall it was a very enriching experience and I would like to express my gratitude to the Graduate School and the School of Tourism for giving me the financial support to attend CAUTHE Conference 2013.”

Technology Enhanced Tourist Experiences: a holistic exploration of how technology can enhance tourist experiences

by Barbara Neuhofer

Technology Enhanced Tourist Experiences 

The notion of consumers increasingly striving for experiences constitutes an important concept for the tourism industry. The strategic staging of experiences in the experience economy has become crucial for companies as products have become commodified and competitive advantage can only obtained by providing customers with unique and memorable experiences. Recently, there has been evidence that the company-centric idea of staging is being advanced by the principles of co-creation, which recognise active, involved and empowered consumers in co-creating their experiences conjointly with the company in quest for personal growth.
More recently, there has been evidence that a second major shift is impacting upon the nature of tourism experiences. Experiences are not only transforming as consumers are empowered to co-create their own experiences but because information and communication technologies (ICTs) are implemented as a catalyst of change enhancing the tourism experience. The proliferation of ICTs in tourism has thus had fundamental impacts by changing the nature of the tourism experience distinctively.  These latest evolutions show that the developments in the field of experience are on-going.  With the dynamics of empowered consumers and proliferating technologies, conventional roles, structures and processes of creating experiences have changed. Despite the high relevance and cutting-edge nature of experience research, we currently lack in a full understanding of the use of technology for the creation of tourism experiences.
This makes research in this area critical. Studies are needed to shed light on this very subject and to reveal how to use emerging ICTs in order to facilitate the successful creation of technology enhanced tourism experiences in the future. The research carried out by Barbara Neuhofer, Professor Dimitrios Buhalis and Adele Ladkin at the eTourismLab at Bournemouth University tackles this issue and aims to generate a valuable knowledge by exploring the nature of Technology Enhanced Tourism Experiences.
Preliminary findings of the study indicate that through ICTs experiences are taken to a complete new level. By integrating the range of technologies available, such as mobile technologies and the plethora of social media platforms, businesses are enabled to not only co-create experiences in the physical destination space on-site but to extend experience co-creation with tourist consumers into a virtual space. This leads tourism businesses to operate in a new multi-phase experience co-creation space of a physical and virtual nature in the pre-/during-/post- stages of travel. Experiences can thus be created in multiple experience spaces, on multiple levels of engagement and social circles of interaction, leading to more meaningful experiences and added value for the tourist.
For the tourism industry, research on Technology Enhanced Tourism Experiences will be critical to understand technology as an instrument for increasing competitiveness, minimising the interchangeability and replicability of tourism products and services and maximising the creation of rich experiences and value. This research demonstrates that technology needs to be understood as a key tool, a source of innovation, strategic differentiation and competitive advantage to empower customer co-creation, one-to-one engagement and personalisation in order to create high-touch technology-enhanced tourism experiences in the future.

New project: The Gamification of Tourism – A Future Trend

by Barbara Neuhofer

Project Description:

Gamification uses gaming mechanism in a non-traditional gaming context. Its potential impact to generate brand awareness and encourage consumer engagement makes it popular in many businesses including tourism. According to WTM Report (2011), gamification is a major trend for the coming years in tourism. It represents a new industry frontier which this project will pioneer.

The project is to investigate key stakeholders’ motivations and expectations of a future global trend: tourism gamification.

Through focus groups and interviews, the project will explore tourists (users) and other key stakeholders’ (Destination Management Organizations, service providers) motivations and expectations of tourism gamification.

 

Investigator Team:

Principle investigator: Dr. Feifei Xu

Dr. Xu is a senior lecturer in the School of Tourism, Bournemouth University, England. Her research interests include nature tourism, sustainable tourism and digital destination.

Co-investigator: Dr. Feng Tian

Dr. Tian is an associate professor in BU. He has been researching in the areas of Computer Graphics, Computer Animation, Computer Game, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality for over 10 years.

Co-investigator: Prof. Dimitrios Buhalis

Prof. Buhalis is an expert in ICT applications in the Tourism, Travel, Hospitality and Leisure industries. He is the Director of the eTourism Lab at BU and the President of the International Federation for Information Technologies in Travel and Tourism.

 

University:

Bournemouth University has over 17,000 students of which 1,500 are international students from around 130 countries. It has a strong professional orientation with a focus on academic excellence and graduate employability.

The School of Tourism has a vibrant and effective research community and is home to two of the world’s top 10 tourism journals, as well as the leading international textbook.

e-Tourism Lab explores cutting edge information and communication technologies, alongside e-based strategic management and marketing for the tourism and hospitality industries.

Our research partners of this project in China include Prof. Jie Zhang from Nanjing University and Dr. Hong Wu from Donghua University, Shanghai.

ENTER 2012 – Main conclusions

by Barbara Neuhofer

ENTER 2012, the annual IT and Tourism conference, was held from 24th to 27th January 2012 in Helsingborg, Sweden.

Organised by IFITT, the leading international organisation for information technologies in travel and tourism, this conference is the biggest tourism IT and travel related event of the year, attracting 300 delegates from more than 40 countries, covering all continents. This edition had 150 presenters, which attended the conference to discuss the present and the future of eTourism. Overall, the event included 6 keynotes, 51 research papers, 59 industry presentations, 16 PhD-student presentations and 14 presentations on the Scandinavian day.

IFITT President Professor Dimitrios Buhalis stated that “ENTER has again identified the most important developments in tourism and technology. It is evident from the presentations that social media is becoming the most critical communication tool for organizations to engage dynamically with consumers. Applications which are location and context aware and facilitate a range of sensors also emerge to provide dynamic solution for the travellers. Perhaps the future will emerge through innovations in augmented reality and gamification where the virtual will blend with the real world. This will enable tourism and travel organizations to co-create memorable experiences with – rather than for – tourists, throughout their journey from inspiration to travel experience and post-trip sharing in the social world.”

Rodolfo Baggio, ENTER2012 Chair said: “A wonderful team has been able to provide a well-balanced and high-quality program. Good and insightful presentations from academia, industry and destinations have given the audience examples and ideas. The social program, and the Swedish hospitality has then helped strengthening the most important aspect of the whole IFITT community: the willingness to work together for the advancement of the field.”

During ENTER2012 KLM was awarded with the prestigious IFITT innovation award for their innovations on social media marketing and state -of-the art approach in customer service via social media in airline industry. Additional IFITT Awards were presented: the Hannes Werthner Tourism and Technology Lifetime Achievement Award to Inkeri Starry from Regional Council of Lapland (Finland), Dr. Carlos Lamsfus from Cic-Tourgune (Spain) won the Thesis Excellence Award, while Malgorzata Ogonowska (Poland) won the best PHD proposal Award. ENTER2012 Best Paper Award was presented to Ada Lo, Joey Wu and Rob Law (Hong Kong Polytechnic University); Andrew Lepp, Heather Gibson, Charles Lane won the Journal Paper of the Year Award for a study entitled: Image and perceived risk – A study of Uganda and its official tourism website published in Tourism Management. Finally, John Fotis won the picture competition with a prize offered by the Thailand Tourism Board.

Barbara Neuhofer is awarded 2nd Prize for Best PhD Proposal at ENTER2012

by Barbara Neuhofer

(In the picture: Prof. Dimitrios Buhalis, IFITT President; Barbara Neuhofer, Bournemouth University PhD Student; Dr. Ulrike Gretzel, Chair ENTER 2012 PhD Workshop)

 

Babara Neuhofer, PhD student at the Bournemouth University eTourism Lab won the 2nd Prize of the PhD Workshop Best Proposal Award at ENTER 2012, held in Helsingborg, Sweden on 24th to 27th January for her proposal entitled “Revisiting the Tourist Experience: An exploration of the essence of the technology-enabled enhanced tourist experience”.

The annual PhD Research Workshop at the ENTER conference was attended by doctoral students from all over the world who are undertaking research in information and communication technology in the tourism industry. The ENTER 2012 conference was run by the International Federation for Information Technology in Travel and Tourism (IFITT), the leading independent global community for the discussion, exchange and development of knowledge about the use and impact of ICT in the travel and tourism industry.

Barbara’s research, supervised by Prof. Dimitrios Buhalis, Prof. Adele Ladkin and Dr. Scott Cohen, focuses on exploring how technologies can be used to enhance the tourist experience for the tourist throughout all stages, i.e. pre/during/post, of the travel process.

Abstract of the PhD Proposal:

The notion of consumers increasingly striving for experiences constitutes a prevalent concept in today’s experience economy. The significance of experiences in both tourism research and practice has been acknowledged by literature in the past. However, given the recent impact of technology on tourist experiences, there is evidence for a prevailing insufficient understanding of the experience in a technology-mediated context. Considering that the changing nature of the tourist experience needs to be understood in order to create and deliver competitive experiences in the future, a revision of the concept is indispensable. Based on this rationale, the doctoral research aims to explore how technologies can be used to enhance the tourist experience for the tourist throughout all stages, i.e. pre/during/post, of the travel process. Theoretical contribution in terms of developing a holistic framework to understand and measure the Technology Enhanced Tourist Experience by adopting a mixed methods approach will be provided.

For further information on Barbara’s research project.

View Barbara’s PhD Research Poster: ENTER 2012_Poster Presentation_Barbara Neuhofer.

For further information on ENTER2012 go to: http://www.ifitt.org/congresses/website/enter2012/Home_page.