Designing and distributing tourism information and encounters: Experience versus tools or tools enhancing and improving qualitative experiences?
Tourism is a human activity, people visiting places and local individuals hosting them in their best way. It is about the psychological and social experience of the encounter, opening our horizons, improving our culture and getting better persons. This is essence of the encounter. Ongoing developments in ICTs have a major impact, significant changes in the way tourism-related information is distributed and on tourist consumer behavior. The major impacts of the “digital revolution” on tourism have come through social media and mobile devices, changing the tourism landscape.
However, travelling is about curiosity, outwardness, and a search for authentic encounters with the other. The various devices and tools are a medium that enabled this, encouraged seeing as opposed to merely looking. Could these technological tools substitute the essence of living experience of travelling? Could these tools contribute to make the travel experience better, facilitate and enhance the encounter? Let us meet up at the Entretiens de Vixouze and attempt to share our vision and opinions.
Prof Marios Sotiriadis,
University of South Africa