Abstract
With the development of technology, new innovative approaches emerge day by day. With the internet and mobile devices being used more actively, many applications provide great convenience to our lives. This situation has brought about many changes and developments when it is evaluated in terms of both businesses and consumers. Enterprises are using applications that will increase customer satisfaction and loyalty to be different from competitors, adopt in the market, interiorize a sustainable policy, and make more profit. Some technological applications will save customers time and increase satisfaction and loyalty in tourism enterprises and all other businesses. One of these applications is the use of QR codes.
TopBackground
The most significant point of QR code which has got involved in our lives due to latest developments in mobile technology is to accelerate information flow. Instead of memorizing or noting an advertisement, an information letter etc. which are seen in a newspaper, at a mall, in a shop or while walking on the street, this information can be immediately reached, recorded, and utilized at will thanks to an easy application in a smart phone and its camera. In these regards, QR code is regarded as one of the most effective visual factors to accelerate information flow in digital world.
QR code is defined as “pictural bridges which can be basically embedded in physical environment” (Coleman, 2011) and is an innovative extension of standard barcode (Bi, Feng, Liu, & Wang, 2008). In the year 1994, QR code was developed by a Japanese company named “Denso Wave” in order to follow vehicles in production process and perform an inventory in automobile industry (Cata, Patel, & Sakaguchi, 2013; Narayanan, 2012). Without demanding any charges or imposing restriction to generate codes, the company has permitted unlimited access across the globe. Therefore, QR code is widely utilized not only in its original country, Japan, but also in several countries (Kan, Teng, & Chou, 2009). Since codes can include so much information in them and attract consumers’ interest, they have begun to be utilized over time in many different areas from product tracking to entertainment or from marketing to interior product labelling (Shin et al., 2012).
As seen in Figure 1, the code is made of square black modules on a white background to code a text, URLs (Uniform Resource Locator) to reach web pages or other data.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Augmented Reality (AR): An enhanced version of reality created by the use of technology to overlay digital information on an image of something being viewed through a device (such as a smartphone camera).
Uniform Resource Locator (URL): Encoded in QR code to provide more information about products.
Smart Tourism Destination: One that responds to the requirements of the present global and mobile elites by facilitating access to tourism and hospitality products, services, spaces and experiences through ICT-based tools and where a healthy social and cultural environment can be found through a focus on the city’s social and human capital.
Barcode: A code consisting of a group of printed and variously patterned bars and spaces and sometimes numerals that is designed to be scanned and read into computer memory and that contains information (such as identification) about the object it labels.
Tourism Business: Business tourism is the provision of facilities and services to the millions of delegates who annually attend meetings, congresses, exhibitions, business events, incentive travel and corporate hospitality.
Universal Product Code: A combination of a bar code and numbers by which a scanner can identify a product and usually assign a price.
Near Field Communication (NFC): A technology for digitally transmitting information over short distances (usually between a smartphone and another device) using radio waves.
Mobil Application: A mobile application, most commonly referred to as an app, is a type of application software designed to run on a mobile device, such as a smartphone or tablet computer.