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Invisible, attentive and adaptive technologies that provide tourists with relevant services and information anytime and anywhere may no longer be a vision from the future. The new display paradigm, stemming from the synergy of new mobile devices, context-awareness and AR, has the potential to enhance tourists’ experiences and make them exceptional. However, effective and usable design is still in its infancy. In this publication we present an overview of current smartphone AR applications outlining tourism-related domain-specific design challenges. This study is part of an ongoing research project aiming at developing a better understanding of the design space for smartphone context-aware AR applications for tourists.

Advances in information and communications technologies (ICTs) have strategic implications for a wide range of industries. \ud \ud Tourism and hospitality have dramatically changed by the ICTs and the Internet and gradually emerge as the leading industry on online expenditure. The Internet revolutionised traditional distribution models, enabled new entries propelled both disintermediation and reintermediation and altered the sources of competitive advantage. This paper explores the strategic implications of ICTs and the perceived advantages and disadvantages of Internet distribution for small and medium-sized hospitality enterprises (SMEs). Primary research in Athens hotels demonstrates the effects of the Internet and ICTs for secondary markets, where there is lower penetration and ICT adoption. Interviews and questionnaires identified a number of strategies in order to optimise distribution. The analysis illustrates the strategic role of ICTs and the Internet for hospitality organisations and Small and Medium-sized organisations in general. Most hotels employ a distribution mix that determines the level and employment of the Internet. The paper demonstrates that only organisations that use ICTs strategically will be able to develop their electronic distribution and achieve competitive advantages in the future.

Embedded in information search theory and based on exploratory research, this paper investigates accessibility tourism information schemes as information communication sources and their potential to fulfill the informational needs of tourists with a disability. Five interrelated need components are identified: richness and reliability of information, appropriate information sources, communication tools and customer-orientation. The results show that the existing schemes studied only partly comply with informational requirements. Major limitations include their high fragmentation and lack of geographical reach, which result in deficiencies in quality, depth and breadth of information, appropriate customer-oriented and communication services using mainstream media. To achieve information satisfaction and fully enable disabled people, it is advocated that a pan-European approach to accessibility is necessary to remove informational barriers that currently restrict travel options of disabled individuals.

This paper identifies a number of key changes in Information Communication Technologies (ICT) that gradually revolutionize the tourism industry. E-tourism and the Internet in particular support the interactivity between tourism enterprises and consumers and as a result they re-engineer the entire process of developing, managing and marketing tourism products and destinations. All stakeholders related to tourism and hospitality, therefore, gradually see their role being changed and new opportunities and challenges emerging. The paper demonstrates that future of e-Tourism will be focused on consumer centric technologies to ensure that the new sophisticated and experienced consumers are served. Therefore, agile strategies are required at both strategic and tactical management levels to develop the ‘infostructure’ for tourism organizations to manage their internal functions, their relationships with partners and their interactions with all stakeholders including consumers. Only those organizations that appreciate the opportunities which ICTs bring and manage their resources successfully will be able to enhance their innovation and competitiveness in the future.

ICTs stimulate radical changes in the operation, distribution and structure of the tourism industry. The proliferation of technology throughout the tourism distribution channels essentially means that both consumers and professionals use the newly available tools in order to retrieve information, identify suitable products and perform reservations. ICTs will increasingly determine the ability of principles to distribute their product efficiently and to communicate interactively with their clientele. ICTs can introduce great benefits to the efficiency, differentiation, cost reduction and response time of tourism organisations. Should tourism principals neglect the significance of ICTs in their distribution function, they will effectively jeopardise their competitiveness and become marginalised., AS TICs provocam mudanças radicais na operacionalização, distribuição e estruturação da indústria do turismo. A proliferação da tecnologia ao longo dos canais de distribuição do turismo basicamente reflecte que, tanto os consumidores como os profissionais do sector, usam as recentes ferramentas disponíveis de modo a obter informação, identificar produtos apropriados e efectuar reservas. As TICs irão gradualmente determinar a capacidade dos diversos agentes intervenientes no sector do turismo em distribuir os seus produtos de forma eficiente e em comunicar interactivamente com os consumidores. As TICs podem beneficiar fortemente a eficiência, a diferenciação, a redução dos custos e dos tempos de resposta nas organizações do sector do turismo. Ao se negligenciar a importância das TICs na fase de distribuição, poder-se-á comprometer a competitividade dos agentes, que correm o risco de serem marginalizados.