The Role of Smartphones in Mediating the Touristic Experience

Abstract

Mobile phones have evolved to be smart computers (smartphones) supporting a wide range of information services that can be accessed anytime and from (almost) anywhere. With the increasing number of users and greater incursion into people's life, smartphones have the potential to significantly influence the touristic experience. This study explores the mediation mechanisms of smartphones by examining stories provided by travelers related to their use of smartphones (and associated applications) for traveling purposes. The results reveal that smartphones change tourists' behavior and emotional states by addressing a wide variety of information needs. Importantly, the instant information support of smartphones enables tourists to more effectively solve problems, share experiences, and 'store' memories. The implications of these findings are important in that they suggest the huge potential of smartphones in changing many aspects of the tourism business.

Value Co-creation and Co-destruction in Connected Tourist Experiences

“…While tourism traditionally lagged behind in discussing co-creation in research and applying its principles in practice, it is evident that co-creation has gained increasing recognition. Particularly in the field of technology, scholarship has highlighted the potential of ICTs to mediate experiences and enable opportunities for co-creation in a number of different ways (Tussyadiah & Fesenmaier, 2009;Wang, Park, & Fesenmaier, 2012). Tourists use social media and networking applications as central tools to connect and share experiences (Kim & Tussyadiah, 2013;Neuhofer et al, 2012), engage and co-create experiences with an array of actors, e.g.…”

“…companies, at any time (McCabe, Sharples, & Foster, 2012;Sfandla & Björk, 2013;Sigala, 2012b). Mobile technologies are key tools to amplify these practices to gather information (Wang et al, 2012) and support experiences by involving these networks anywhere on the move (Kim & Tussyadiah, 2013).…”

Developments and key issues in tourism mobilities

“…Thus tourism mobilities research is responding to the call for -better theorization and research, especially to examine the interdependencies between changes in physical movement and in electronic and tablet computers, and social media-expand and modify the traditional contours of tourism (Mascheroni, 2007;White and White, 2007;Paris, 2010Paris, , 2012Germann Molz, 2012;Wang, Park, and Fesenmaier, 2012;Tussyadiah and Fesenmaier, 2008). These new technologies are reconfiguring both time and space (Green, 2002) for their users as they become more ubiquitous parts of daily life.…”

“…Some researchers have suggested that these advancements allow for tourists to be more creative (Richards, 2011) and spontaneous (Wang, Park, and Fesenmaier, 2012). Positioning Systems (GPS) and a wide range of mobile ‗apps' to locate and provide location specific information for people (Frith, 2012).…”

Las ciudades Patrimonio de la Humanidad ante el paradigma Smart

“…Para Elisa Martín, directora de tecnología e innovación de IBM España, este proyecto enlaza el mundo físico con la información que lo describe, dos mundos -el físico y el digitalque antes estaban desconectados 6 . Este tipo de apps manifiestan el potencial de aplicaciones creativas de las tecnologías asociadas a la revolución de la movilidad, en especial los smartphones como soporte de experiencias durante el viaje (Wang, Park, & Fesenmaier, 2012). Todo ello constituye una etapa diferente denominada e-tourism (Buhalis, 2003), que no solo utilizaba tecnologías previas diferentes, sino que estaba principalmente centrada en el antes (planificación y reserva) y el después del viaje.…”