Get on your phone and get outside!

Technology and travel are perfect partners. It wasn’t long ago that we had to visit a few travel agents on the high street to compare prices and book our holidays. Today, a plethora of price comparison sites exist, as well as people data scraping to bring exceptionally low flight prices to subscribers. Technology has become so ubiquitous with travel that according to the Google Travel Survey, only 13% of people still use a travel agent.

The travel industry changed to meet the digital shift for purchasing, but this is just the starting point. Anton Clave, the Department Director for Tourism Salvador, said during the Forum TurisTIC that ‘the change goes beyond improving processes or the tourist experience; it entails transforming the tourism system itself.’

The next step for the travel industry is not just making a booking and planning process simple but harnessing technology to enhance the holiday experience.

Amsterdam: a tale of two cities

Amsterdam has become known as a party city, a place for tourists to go and enjoy a culture that has embraced living free. But this has angered residents who are tired of tourists, mainly British tourists, abusing that lifestyle, ending up shouting, throwing up and worse on the streets. Amsterdam ran a very different tourism campaign titled ‘Stay away’. It has worked. The country has seen a 22% decline in British visitors compared with 2019, and global tourists arriving in the Netherlands are down 26%.

It isn’t tourists that Amsterdam doesn’t like - it is the wrong type of tourist. The country is filled with historical and important tourist destinations. From Anne Frank’s House to Van Gogh’s Museum and the beautiful Vondelpark. There is so much more to Amsterdam than partying and making an expensive mess that needs to be policed and cleaned up before locals go to work in the morning.

How can a city encourage a different type of visitor?

The concept of smart cities has been around for decades; some have argued that Amsterdam was responsible for creating a virtual ‘digital city’ in 1994 to promote internet usage. IBM took on the charge of investigating the application of sensors, networks, and analytics to urban issues. Today, we all walk around with a phone in our pocket that allows technology within a city to be used for many purposes that can encourage tourists to visit.?

Getting Around: shifting towards digital infrastructure with intelligent transportation systems can significantly improve mobility for tourists. GPS-enabled public transportation and real-time traffic updates can all be passed to a tourist. Harnessing digital signage and navigation can guide tourists through the city, providing information about attractions, events they may be interested in, and services they might need. This can all be done in a language comfortable to the individual visitor.

Augment Reality: AR applications can offer interactive, guided tours of historical sites, giving each tourist a more engaging and educational experience. For those looking to head out and explore by themselves, wayfaring technology can help visitors feel secure that they won’t get lost. It can also provide them with information and exciting points they may wish to visit on their trails.

Another exciting application to help tourists is Virtual Reality. The largest cities have more to explore and enjoy than a short trip allows. Being able to look at landmarks remotely to decide if they are where you want to visit or to be able to plot your path through giant museums that can take a whole day are tools that can help make a tourist visit feel more effortless, more welcoming, encouraging repeat visits to see the things they have missed out on.

It seems counterintuitive that technology can encourage visitors and engagement. The National Trust is an excellent example of how technology can change the visitor experience. Mobile apps and digital platforms help users plan their visits, access maps, and receive event notifications. At locations, exhibits have become interactive at specific properties. Touchscreens, multimedia displays and interactive installations have all been utilised to create a better visitor experience. Through their mobile app, geolocation and GPS technology provide real-time information about nearby attractions, walking trails and points of interest.

The beauty of applying this technology to tourism is that it is as available as you want. If you are the type of person who wants to get lost in a city or tourist attraction, you can leave your phone in your pocket, but if you stumble across something extraordinary and want to know more, simply pulling out your phone allows you to find out as much as you want to know. Every city that wants to encourage tourism should look at how they can utilise technology to help visitors plan their trips and enjoy their experience once they arrive.