A novel way of interacting with the world, seen as an overlapping of real and virtual spaces, which complement and reinforce each other. Thus, the tourist experience is based on the overlapping of digital information (bits and bytes) with real objects and landscapes (rich in colors, textures, sounds, smells, and flavors). Digital elements are used to trigger or heighten an immersive real-world experience, but the process can also work the other way around: a physical action can promote a search or prompt an alert, usually through interaction with sensors or machine-readable milestones conveying relevant information to users through digital interfaces.
Published in Chapter:
Smart Tourism and Local Heritage: Phygital Experiences and the Development of Geotourism Routes
Claudete Oliveira Moreira (Centre of Studies in Geography and Spatial Planning, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Coimbra, Portugal), Rui Ferreira (Centre of Studies in Geography and Spatial Planning, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Coimbra, Portugal), and Tiago Santos (Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Coimbra, Portugal)
Copyright: © 2021
|Pages: 27
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-6701-2.ch012
Abstract
Contemporary society is sustained by a growing digitalization of social processes, with exponential growth in the uses of ICT, which opened up new interaction possibilities with objects and places. In the field of tourism, these technological developments have given rise to the emergence of new concepts: smart tourism, smart destinations, smart experiences, and smart heritage. These concepts and their implications for the success of tourist activities are discussed first, and then the focus of analysis is shifted to the local tourism resources and characteristics. The case study focuses on the municipality of São Pedro do Sul, an area located in the Viseu Dão Lafões subregion, within the Central Region of Portugal. Several low-cost digital strategies are proposed to enrich tourism activities based on endogenous cultural and natural resources and empower route tourism as a relevant strategy for diversifying tourism and support the sustainable development of local communities based on a digital application that aims to integrate storytelling in the territorial context under study.