AR in Tourism

Early Prototypes & Projects

The oldest tourism-related use of mobile augmented reality dates back to the end 90′s, when wearable computing and tracking devices became small enough to take them to the streets. On the left you can see a slightly more recent version of this early MARS prototype  that was designed as a 3D graphical tour guide for the Columbia Universtiy campus and provided its wearer with information about the various campus buildings and objects, including restaurants. The left image (a) shows the user, with his mobile wearable computing system and the right (b) displays what he sees through his goggles (Höllerer, 2004). Admittedly, small enough is rather relative and no tourist would be caught dead walking through an unknown city with such a device.

Many tourists travel half way across the world, only to look at a few left over blocks and torso’s without heads.  Cultural Heritage sites could be brought back to life, by adding a virtual layer of the original building of artifact ober the remaining ruins. The much referred  to ARCHEOGUIDE project made a start-up at this, however, with the latest progress report dating from 2001, it seems to have become ancient itself. No need to worry though, as shown further below, other artifacts are being programmed into Layar apps and made available for everyone with a smartphone.

An important part of a vacation lies in preparation. Augmented reality could plan an important part in meeting the needs of potential travelers to visualize their possible destination. The use of webcams and markers already make it possible to see the new MINI in 3D at home. Travel brochures and catalogs equipped with markers would do much to visualize hotels, apartments, swimming pools, you name it. Though stealing part of the surprise, this feature would provide the uncertain customer (trying to choose where to spend their only real break all year) with an extra nudge of security and anticipation of the real thing. For Hotel owners, this can be both good and bad news. It can be used as an extra opportunity to display the hotels facilities: However, if it becomes a standard in the industry, those who prefer to keep the information shady, like how big (or small) the pool really is, will be quickly unmasked. “What you see is what you get” will enter a new dimension.

On the road, AR also has much to offer, especially in the form of Mobile AR fit for smartphones. Bus, train and metro maps, stops, arrival and departure times from cities all over the world, ranging from Japan to Toronto have been packed into Layar apps, enabling traveler to get around quite independently. This may be bad news for the host of bus, taxi and information services that capitalize on tourists general confusion and lack of information on the road and at their destination. Transport and travel information service providers will need to asnwer other needs of tourists such as safety and luxury, or in some countries, reliability.

Needless to say though, the most revolutionary changes are and will continue to be those where the destination environment is augmented. Tourism is a sector that has a high demand for on site information. This is not only true for cultural tourists who want to know when he first stone of every building was laid and by whom, but also for the the beach dweller who’s looking for the nearest ice-cream stand.

Tourists interested in the history and culture of a destination are already being served with many downloadable Layers. For example, the entire Berlin Wall can been seen once more in its original context, virtually reestablishing the border that was torn down 21 years ago.

In the catalog of Layar, a company that developed the first augmented reality browser (see post on Mobile AR), there are downloadable applications with layers for smartphones. There are 42 countries for which apps have been developed, and a total of 121 apps for the Travel category alone.

Despite its ancient quality, many of my teachers are somehow fond of showing this image to explain to us what a holiday consists of and which sectors therefore need to be considered for as touristic services. Augmented reality Apps cover all of these fields and more. There are apps for traveling entire countries, for hotels, mountain viewing, cultural heritage, city guides (including a Monopoly Tour of London), tourist attractions, accommodation in general, the Berlin wall montioned before, some things in Japanese I can’t read, “Nice Spot“s, restaurants, cafe’s, clubs. The list goes on.

Layar is not the only company servicing travelers with AR uses, there is also a program with which you can program all you favorite people and places before you travel and have all the information at your fingertips in AR on your smartphone on location during your trip. Watch the introduction movie to this program called TagWhat to find out how it works.

One still has to fill in a lot of data before its really gets started. In the future, I think its safe to say we can expect the possibility to join our various networks, being able to access augmented data on historical sites, locations of friends, nice restaurants etc, all at the same time. Actually, the open source project ARWave is already working on it:

With this in store for use on heand-held devises (smartphones) and the soon to be realised potential of seeing augmented reality through goggles, tourism is in for a massive makeover, Individual traveling may become much easier, because the traveler is less dependent on other people and local resources to get hold of the information he or she needs. Also, customers in tourism may become much more critical, being able to explore a lot of the destination from their home computers. This may simultaneously raise their thresholds of excitement, forcing the industry to be more creative in offering experiences that captivate their clients. Many people working in the sector may need to adapt their services. What relevance does a Berlin tourguide have when a visitor can see the Berlin wall for themselves. This does not mean that such jobs as tourguide will become obsolete,  a tourguide could still, for example, offer support to an individual traveller visiting Berlin after 21 years and booking a tour because of the need to talk about when the Berlin wall fell. Nonetheless, the industry will have to adapt as tourists’ demands shift due to the fulfillment of current needs by augmented reality.

One also must consider that very few technologies fully engulf a society. Even today, some people listen to tapedecks, many wear watches and countless people prefer their 20th century mobile phones over a smartphone. Similarly, many customers will not fall for the AR hype unless it is as embedded in our culture as wearing clothing (some refrain from even this). For those who prefer the old-school world of maps and “hand and feet” language. No problem, AR is virtually added, it won’t bother you if you don’t want to see it.