the near future of tourism services based on digital traces

the near future of tourism services based on digital traces

nicolas nova21.10.2010 | Swiss e-Tourism Forum

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Hello, my name is Nicolas Nova. I am a researcher at Liftlab, a research agency based in Geneva. In this talk today, I will show you how digital traces produced by digital devices (mobile telephone, cameraphones, location-based services, etc.) can be seen as an opportunity to design innovative services for tourism


For the record, I wrote two books about location-based services, mobile applications and the issues at stake when designing them.

3D graphics


Historically, in the last few years, we’ve seen lots of innovation, which may have an influence on tourism/touristic services. 3d rendering played for instance an important role to allow people to prepare their visits.

Location-based servicesWednesday, October 21, 2009

Location-based services such as Loopt (https://app.loopt.com but there are plenty of others) also received lots of attention. At the most basic level, they allow to improve navigation (think about car GPS devices) but mobile application also enable people to get information about where there friends/contacts are located, where to find specific shops and services, etc.

Augmented RealityWednesday, October 21, 2009

Obviously Augmented reality is the new grail for lots of people. See for example Layar (http://layar.com/), an innovative Augmented Reality application that acts as a local search engine which displays the results as a visual overlay on top of reality.

Augmented RealityWednesday, October 21, 2009

Metro Paris Subway (http://www.metroparisiphone.com), an augmented reality application that it shows bus and subway routes, locates nearby travel stations, and highlights points of interest along the way, such as restaurants and hotels.

driving force: “data is the new intel

inside” (Tim oʼreilly)


All these projects are interesting, it’s been 15-20 years research labs are working on prototypes along these vectors. They do have plus and minuses but the problem I see is that they’re based on a limited focus. Indeed, they are mostly input/output interfaces. Another way to look into things would be to start from the DATA and adopt a bottom-up approach about what do with them. Let’s have a look at the kind of data that could be employed.

Social practice:“personal informatics”


Personal informatics like the Nike+iPod Sports Kit: device which measures and records the distance and walk pace on your iPod/iPod Touch/iPhone 3GS. It allows you to view the walk or run history.



Personal informatics is not only for people with iPhone but kids also use it with Nintendo DS. See for example Walk with Me by Nintendo, a little keyfob electronic pedometer to track up your walkabouts and uploads them in the console to see your walking routines.



It’s not only physical movements... also software usage, music on itunes, books checked on Amazon could be tracked and employed

Social practice:user-generated content


The picture one put on the Web too

Social practice:user-generated content


Your upcoming travels can also be shared through platforms such as Dopplr or WAYN

Technological change:sensors


Data can additionally come from sensors

Technological change:sensors


And your (smart)phone is of course a sensor

Policies: open GIS, open data


Finally, policies are changing now and more and more public data are shared (open GIS, open data initiative). This is also an important material.

Phone (GPS/cell-id, camera, mp3, web browsing...)

Urban sensors

Flickr picturesSpatial coordinatesMovements...

Public data


So end up with plenty of data sources: public database (sensor, weather, pollution), personal objects that report about their status, “traces” generated by people activity (intentional traces: photo on flickr, background information: the music people listen to on itunes, the books checked on Amazon...)

some examples


Real Time Rome (Sensable City Lab)


Real-time Rome aggregated data from cell phones to better understand urban dynamics in real time. By revealing the pulse of the city, the project aims to show how technology can help individuals make more informed decisions about their environment. In the visualizations of Real Time Rome we synthesize data from various real-time networks to understand patterns of daily life and special events in Rome. MIT SENSEable City Lab, Real-Time Rome: http://senseable.mit.edu/realtimerome/


Vélib, fête de la musique 2008, made by Fabien Girardin out of data from the paris bike rental system

Barcelona on Flickr (Fabien Girardin)


Visualisation of pictures taken by people, geotagged, and uploaded on Flickr... and mapped onto the city:http://www.girardin.org/fabien/tracing/


Visualisation of pictures taken by people, geotagged, and uploaded on Flickr... and mapped onto the country:http://senseable.mit.edu/worldseyes/


Visualisation of pictures taken by people, geotagged, and uploaded on Flickr... and mapped onto the country: Switzerland. The visualizations of Flickr pictures allows evaluating the potential of using people-generated geotagged information to contribute urban understanding.

what’s the point?


This is all nice and sexy but what’s the point? how is this pertinent for the tourism industry?

1. Reveal the invisible+ improve statistics


The first goal is certainly representational: as every map, it could be pertinent to make visible and explicit phenomena that are invisible. The analysis reveals new elements, either hidden in databases or new data-source

2. Make people participate


In addition, it can enable to engage people differently in their environment (WikiCity, MIT Sensable City lab:http://senseable.mit.edu/wikicity/rome/): by showing them these new phenomena some researchers hypothesize that city inhabitants may be influenced. The question they would like to explore are the following: 'How do people react towards this new perspective upon their own city while they are determining the city's very own dynamic?' and 'How does having access to real time data in the context of possible action alter the process of decision making in how to go about different activities?'

3. Evaluate urban strategy (Sensable City Lab)


These maps can also be useful to evaluate urban strategies. The MIT Sensable City Lab worked on the evaluation of the Waterfall project in NYC



The project allowed to characterize visitor’s dynamic based on picture shared by people on Flickr (explicitly disclosed) and records of mobile phone network usage (implicitly-generated) to map the spatial distribution of locals and visitors to evaluate the impact of the New York City Waterfalls on the attractiveness of the waterfront. This new sort of data enable to develop attractiveness indicators to evaluate strategies

Image courtesy of Sense Networks

4. Improve the infrastructure?


Fabien Girardin’s work about Bicing in Barcelona + other people are working on these datasets too: Aleix Ruiz de Villa has developed an algorithm to improve the distribution of the bikes http://www.lavanguardia.es/ciudadanos/noticias/20090314/53659920153/un-joven-barcelones-idea-un-algoritmo-para-mejorar-el-bicing.html

Image courtesy of Sense NetworksImage courtesy of Sense Networks

4. Improve the infrastructure?


Fabien Girardin’s work + other people are working on these datasets too: Aleix Ruiz de Villa has developed an algorithm to improve the distribution of the bikes http://www.lavanguardia.es/ciudadanos/noticias/20090314/53659920153/un-joven-barcelones-idea-un-algoritmo-para-mejorar-el-bicing.html

Citysense shows you how active locations are right now and which ones are abnormally active. It sees cities “from above and puts the top live hotspots in your hand” by crunching vast amounts of data emanating from thousands of cell-phones, GPS-equipped cabs and other data devices to paint live pictures of where people are gathering.

5. New forms of (real-time) services


Beyond these usages, the data can also be employed to create new forms of real-time services such as Citysense (http://www.citysense.com)

Image courtesy of Sense NetworksWednesday, October 21, 2009

5. Allow people to make informed decisions


EveryBlock (http://www.everyblock.com) filters an assortment of local news by location so you can keep track of what’s happening on your block, in your neighborhood and all over your city.

Image courtesy of Sense Networks

6. Dynamic signage


Dash is a service that combines traditional GPS navigation to the collection of contextualized, aggregated and geolocalized traces of other users. It therefore approaches traffic in an original way – by collecting it from other people driving real commute routes, during real commute times. Each Dash Express anonymously and automatically sends its position and speed back to servers at the Dash Network Operations Center. The Dash servers then update all other Dash devices in the area with current road speeds. That way, members of the Dash Driver Network always have the best, most up-to-date traffic information available.

problems?


What are the issues at stake

privacy


Privacy is a sensitive issue (quite logical) Who owns the data? Who takes care of the data?

infrastructure problems


technological flaws


uncertainty, accuracy troubles


conclusion

• Hybridization of the digital and the physical

• Records of people interactions (intentional or implicit) enable to quantify our behaviors and create new indicators

• These traces lead to lots of opportunities: detailed analysis of touristsʼ experience (marketing+evaluation tool) + create tourist activity/infrastructures accordingly + design real-time information applications for tourists

• Both for tourists AND services providers + public bodies


[email protected]


mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

the near future of tourism services based on digital traces

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