Tourism 4.0 technologies and tourist experiences: a human-centered design perspective

Abstract

Building on the momentum of Industry 4.0 developments in production and manufacturing, the tourism-specific concept of Tourism 4.0 currently fuels visions of similar technology-based transformations towards highly interconnected and phygital systems in the tourism industry. There is an implicit assumption that the technological innovations of Tourism 4.0 work better for the benefits of tourists. However, even marvels of tourism information technology often come with a serious lack of human-centered design. The unprecedented speed of development and implementation of Tourism 4.0 technology further adds to this neglect. In addition, traditional approaches to designing the user experience of interactive systems are now seriously challenged by the disruption of traditional views on the goals of system use, more complex user roles, and the dynamic and hybrid context of the use. The powerful capabilities of Tourism 4.0 technologies allow for the enhancement of interaction with a system and enrichment of the tourist experience itself, providing new ways of assisting in behavior change and even in the long-lasting transformation of the users. However, this also means greater potential for harm. This viewpoint conceptualizes three different effects of interactive system use on technology-mediated tourist experiences—besides goal achievement that impacts satisfaction, effects can be goal-limiting (ranging from distracting to damaging) or goal-surpassing (ranging from enhancing to transforming). This conceptualization is then used to frame the importance of human-centered design for emerging Tourism 4.0 technologies.

Digital well-being in the tourism domain: mapping new roles and responsibilities

“…As part of the technological response to negative technology impacts, some other products and tech-focused initiatives have emerged, such as social companion robots, more responsible and humane technology, coupled with efforts to promote calm or biophilic designs, technology-assisted mindfulness, downgrading smartphones to so-called dumb phones, etc. (Stankov et al 2020a , b ; Stankov and Gretzel 2020 ) (Fig. 1 ).…”

“…through complete automation); increased FOMO (fear of missing out); technology isolation on vacation; and, value co-destruction, to mention a few. The prevalence of ICT in tourism is no surprise given that the tourism industry has always been eager to adopt the latest technology to make its operations more efficient (Xiang 2018 ) while sometimes forgetting the human side of the tourist experience (Stankov and Gretzel 2020 ). Furthermore, with the proliferation of technology in all aspects of everyday life and the emergence of a smart development paradigm, the reliance on technology has become paramount for many tourism providers in their effort to offer compelling experience co-creation opportunities and superior service delivery and, thus, their need to achieve sustained competitiveness (Gretzel et al 2015 ).…”

Impact of Resources on the Development of Local Entrepreneurship in Industry 4.0

“…In the new tourist paradigm [57], the key features motivating the customer include education, excitement, and entertainment increasingly often. Tourism has been quick to jump onto the emerging Industry 4.0 trend, embracing increased technological development within its own framework of Tourism 4.0 [58]. Tourism 4.0 may be referred to as a new tourism value eco-system built upon a highly technology-based service production paradigm and supported by the common principles of Industry 4.0, namely interoperability, virtualization, decentralization, real-time data gathering and analysis capability, service orientation, and modularity [59].…”

Ultrasonic-Based Environmental Perception for Mobile 5G-Oriented XR Applications

“…7. An Application Scenario: Tourism 4.0 Tourism 4.0 [75][76][77] applications may significantly benefit from the use of IoT-enhanced XR systems. In particular, IoT systems can be used to perceive the environment (namely, ultrasonic sensors to perceive obstacles) and/or to navigate the XR user through the real world, while being immersed in a virtual scene.…”