Abstract
Digital platforms can facilitate the establishment of collaboration networks between tourists and local agents, promoting the importance of dialogue, as well as the opportunity for constant innovation. In this way, digital platforms can help tourists co-create their most valuable experiences with other tourists and influence a tourism destination's success. This chapter aims to describe the process of studying and analysing the possibility of implementing a digital solution, which intends to encourage interactions between different local agents and tourists, facilitating communication processes and collaboration and encouraging the joint creation of innovative “bottom-up” initiatives. Considering the different potentialities of the mobile context for tourism, health, and wellness, it was decided to develop a mobile application, which aims to facilitate their communication processes, allowing for constant connectivity inside the network. This article presents the main results of the development and validation process of the mobile application prototype.
TopIntroduction
The development of tourism-related local community initiatives can support local agents and residents’ participation, benefiting the creation of diversified and innovative tourist activities that use specific local resources (Domareski-Ruiz, Gândara & Chim-Miki, 2015). In terms of tourist offer, community initiatives’ involvement is significant to promote territorial strengths and ensure the existence of unique and non-reproducible endogenous characteristics, which are increasingly valued by current tourists who praise the overall authenticity of the travel experience (Antunes, 2017). These local initiatives’ innovative behaviour is on the intersection of communication, adaptation, creativity, and learning dynamics, which open the space for human and social capital investments (Moulaert & Nussbaumer, 2005).
The promotion of CBT can benefit the development of the territory, contributing to the economic development of communities, as well as to the protection and conservation of material and immaterial heritage (Antunes, 2017; Paula, 2010). However, in times of increasing globalisation, tourist destinations face several challenges, such as the growing competition between destinations; the ongoing change of tourist profiles; transformation in the intermediation systems; the appearance of networks of agents with the capacity to innovate and the integration of digital technologies as an information source and as a viable marketing strategy option for tourist destinations (Benea, 2014). The current situation of recession, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, further requests for a higher closeness and mutual assistance among citizens, communities, and entities, in order to create more appropriate strategies and resolutions for mobilising the region’s potential and boost the capacity of resilience and innovation. These strategies can help to guarantee the success of tourist places when facing major problems, such as world mobility restrictions.
According to Liberato, Alén-González and Liberato (2018), to become an attractive destination a tourist place “should possess certain characteristics such as being surrounded by modern and convenient facilities of communication, be featured with elements of excitement and novelty that can arouse tourists’ curiosity, be filled with desired and anticipated experiences of tourists, and be easy to travel around” (p. 77). Digital technologies can help overcome these challenges, making regions more accessible and attractive to residents and visitors.
The development of interactive digital platforms has been widely reported as being a helpful option to offer a set of tools that facilitates new forms of interactions among the very agents of the territory, providing users with quick access to information and services (Benea, 2014; Hinson, Osabutey & Kosiba, 2018; Zeng & Gerristen, 2014). Thus, the development of these platforms can bring a set of benefits to the field of tourism:
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an effective marketing channel able to integrate communications and marketing strategies of tourism services and products (Benea, 2014; Zeng & Gerristen, 2014);
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the promotion of tourist destinations through the dissemination and commercialisation of tourist activities;
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the possibility for tourists to choose a specific tourist destination based on the information available;
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the monitoring of tourist activities, supporting tourists before and during their stay in the respective destinations;
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providing updated information on what to do, where to go and how to get to a destination;
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information about the specific conditions of a given destination (e.g., accessibility, Wi-Fi) (Jovicic, 2019).
Thus, digital platforms can facilitate the approach between tourists and the destination, in addition to improving their touristic experience in time and space (Costa Liberato et al., 2018; Neuhofer, Buhalis & Ladkin, 2012). In this context, networks that are able to relate through technology community-led innovations are vital to allow citizens and community groups to share resources, be inspired and learn from developed projects. Digital platforms can simplify this process, increasing understanding between local communities and tourists, allowing social bonds to become more permanent and more stable (Lamy & Neto, 2018; Rebelo, Pereira, Rosa, Batista & Carvalho, 2017).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Community-Led Initiatives: The coordinated bottom-up actions and groups that respond to local community needs, while trying to address ecological, social, economic and political problems of global resonance.
Community: The group of people who share affinities and, voluntarily, develop joint actions, in a physical and/or virtual environment, in the context of a territory and produce, repurpose and share information relevant to the development of that territory.
Hypermediation: A complex network of production, exchange and consumption of processes that take place in an environment characterised by countless social actors-agents, digital media and technological languages (Scolari, 2015).
Mobile Application: The computer program downloaded from an app store or service, which runs on a mobile device, typically a handheld device with screen size approximately 3” by 5” (phone size) or about 6” by 10” (tablet size).
Digital Mediation: A specific form of computer mediated communication (Castells, 2007).
Mediation: The communication strategies that allow human beings to represent themselves and their surroundings, in a process of producing and exchanging meaning.
Community-Led Territorial Innovation: Recognises the central role of collective actors – engaged in multiple interactions with different entities – in the creation of public value resulting from territorial resources.