Benckendorff, Pierre, Moscardo, Gianna, and Murphy, Laurie (2005) Contrasting high-tech and high touch experiences in tourist attractions. In: Proceedings of the 11th Annual Conference of the Asia Pacific Tourism Association (1) pp. 638-649. From: New Tourism for Asia-Pacific, 7 - 10 July 2005, Goyang, Korea.

PDF (Published version) Restricted to Repository staff only

Abstract

The increasing use of a variety of new and developing technologies presents a number of challenges and opportunities for both tourism management and research. One area that has been given little research attention is the role of technology in creating and enhancing tourist experiences. This paper reports on a study of this aspect of tourism and technology which had the dual aims of providing practical advice for the design of technology-based experiences at tourist attractions, and of exploring the potential role of mindfulness as a construct to explain and predict tourist behaviour. The study involved a grounded theory analysis of positive critical incidents related to memorable technology and non technology based experiences. The results suggested that mindfulness was a useful explanatory construct for both types of tourist experiences, although the pathways to mindfulness differed between the technology and non technology-based options. For the technology-based examples mindfulness appeared to be based on the ability of the attraction to offer new and multiple perspectives on a topic, the stimulation of multiple senses and ability of the technology to create a complete illusion. For the non-technology based examples mindfulness was associated with living things, authenticity and closeness. In both cases the concept of immersion appears to be important, although that perception is supported by different characteristics. Implications are drawn for both tourist attraction design and the use of mindfulness in tourism research.

Item ID:	8575
Item Type:	Conference Item (Research - E1)
ISBN:	978-89-87511-04-7
Keywords:	technology; attractions; visitor experience; critical incidents; mindfulness
Related URLs:	http://apta.donga.ac.kr/conference/2001....
Date Deposited:	24 Feb 2010 04:34
FoR Codes:	15 COMMERCE, MANAGEMENT, TOURISM AND SERVICES > 1506 Tourism > 150603 Tourism Management @ 100%
SEO Codes:	90 COMMERCIAL SERVICES AND TOURISM > 9003 Tourism > 900399 Tourism not elsewhere classified @ 100%
Downloads:	Total: 5
	More Statistics