Inversini__eTreasure@Athens_March2008

eTREASURE: ENHANCING TOURISTS EXPERIENCE BY PLAYING A TREASURE HUNT

Alessandro InversiniNewminE Lab

University of LuganoSwitzerland

[email protected]  

Lorenzo CantoniNewminE Lab

University of LuganoSwitzerland

[email protected]

e-Business in Travel, Tourism and Hospitality, 14 March 2008, Athens, Greece

e-Business in Travel, Tourism and Hospitality, 14 March 2008, Athens, Greece

AGENDA

• Background and Objectives• Structure and Technology• User Experience• Relevant Issues• Wath’s on Now• Future development

e-Business in Travel, Tourism and Hospitality, 14 March 2008, Athens, Greece

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES

Tourism Goods Consumption

eTreasure objectives

• To offer a playfulness way to enjoy cultural heritage consumption, hence promoting informal learning

• To provide the user with relevant information on the cultural places s/he encounters

• To promote collaborative experiences• To draw users’ attention to a given Point Of Interest, exploiting the concept

of economy of attention• To offer to tourists ad hoc commercial information during the city visit

e-Business in Travel, Tourism and Hospitality, 14 March 2008, Athens, Greece

STRUCTURE & TECHNOLOGY (I)

• Main requirements– Assists/Guide tourists while visiting a cultural site or a city

(consumption phase).– Find an easy and well known way to engage with tourists.

• Publics– The eTreasure project has been designed for two specific publics of

reference: tourists and schools enjoying a visit to a city.

• Technology– SMS and MMS

e-Business in Travel, Tourism and Hospitality, 14 March 2008, Athens, Greece

STRUCTURE & TECHNOLOGY (II)

Orange CH, is eTreasure Technical Partner

e-Business in Travel, Tourism and Hospitality, 14 March 2008, Athens, Greece

USER EXPERIENCE

• Users Motivations– Age and gender;– Interests: players are required to choose a path (e.g. cultural or

natural);– Time: player choose the number of POI to be enclose in the

treasure hunt.

e-Business in Travel, Tourism and Hospitality, 14 March 2008, Athens, Greece

RELEVANT ISSUES

• Treasure Hunt?– The issue of Time

• Informal Learning– “incidental learning, unstructured, unpurposeful but the most

extensive and most important part of all the learning that all of us do everyday of our lives”

Rogers, 2004• Economy of the attention

• Location Based Services– “the key aspects of LCBS are their inherent relations between location

coordinates or activity-contexts and applications”. Kühn,2004

e-Business in Travel, Tourism and Hospitality, 14 March 2008, Athens, Greece

USAGES (I)

e-Business in Travel, Tourism and Hospitality, 14 March 2008, Athens, Greece

USAGES (II)

• Strength:– Creative & different– “City visit that includes outdoor activities coupled

with challenging (interesting) tasks”– Interaction with the system: the easiness of use,

SMS technology is fast and common, easy to answer and to get the next tips

• Weaknesses: – Event communication and promotion– Interaction within the path: users need more

information about the specific places, monuments and so on.

– Errors management

e-Business in Travel, Tourism and Hospitality, 14 March 2008, Athens, Greece

WHAT’S ON NOW

• Carlo Cattaneo Association Award– Regional development

• Schools– Projects with schools (11 to15 years old)

• DMOs integration– Lugano Tourism

e-Business in Travel, Tourism and Hospitality, 14 March 2008, Athens, Greece

FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS

• Coupling each eTreasure hunt with already available paper based guides for tourists, so that they can read them while playing

• Offering podcast material on the website

• Providing brief textual or audio information via MMS when a player is in a given place

• Web portal for eTreasure creators

• Structured Feedbacks

eTREASURE: ENHANCING TOURISTS EXPERIENCE BY PLAYING A TREASURE HUNT

Alessandro InversiniNewminE Lab

University of LuganoSwitzerland

[email protected]  

Lorenzo CantoniNewminE Lab

University of LuganoSwitzerland

[email protected]

e-Business in Travel, Tourism and Hospitality, 14 March 2008, Athens, Greece