Imagine travelling to a metropolis the place all of the vacationer presents can be found on an app and in your native language. Where you don’t must queue for galleries as a result of installations may be conjured up utilizing your smartphone. Or the place digital actuality (VR) reconstructions of historic occasions breathe life into heritage sites.

Smart cities are redefining tourism.

Two years of pandemic-related journey restrictions modified the best way we expertise the world. Virtual tours helped us discover locations from the consolation of our couches, and business travel waned as video calls took over.

Now borders have reopened, international locations are capitalising on this know-how to draw vacationers and improve their experiences.

The time period ‘smart city’ may make you consider robots strolling the streets, flying vehicles crossing the skies or synthetic intelligence controlling public companies. The actuality is barely completely different, however no much less thrilling.

Being a sensible metropolis means standing out in accessibility, sustainability, digitalisation, creativity and protection of cultural heritage.

Denmark’s capital led the best way on this even earlier than the pandemic. The Copenhagen Visitor Service invitations vacationers to plan their itineraries with the assistance of contact display guides, robotics and VR goggles, whereas an app disseminates info and collects knowledge to assist enhance the service.

Hoping to affix these ranks, locations like Zagreb in Croatia and Paphos in Cyprus spare no effort. They are utilizing technologies comparable to augmented actuality (AR) to create digital experiences which can be normally reserved for the gaming trade.

These initiatives have seen each cities shortlisted for the 2023 European Capital of Smart Tourism, a contest that recognises excellent achievements by European cities as tourism locations.

AR transforms Zagreb into a large digital artwork exhibition

Last month, the Zagreb Tourist Board teamed up with know-how firm Equinox to show the capital of Croatia into a large digital artwork exhibition, dubbed Art Future.

Visitors had been invited to obtain the Equinox XR app on their telephones. Once they reached the situation of a selected ‘installation’, they might open their digital camera on the app and the artwork was overlaid in AR – a well-recognized expertise for any Pokémon GO gamers on the market.

“Augmented reality is a technology that enables people to experience virtual content, embedded in the real world which surrounds them,” explains Ivan Voras, founder of Equinox and technical director of the exhibition.

“This can be achieved through special hardware like glasses, but it’s much more efficient and reaches a wider audience currently to do it through mobile phones.” 

Nineteen up to date artists, animators and 3D modellers from world wide displayed their ‘locative art’ – digital art in real-life areas – at Art Future. 

“Visitors and residents [could] view artwork created by major international artists in almost every square or park across the city,” says Ivan. Themes coated the polarising world of NFTs, the therapeutic energy of artwork, and conceptual options to global warming.

This was not the primary time Equinox teamed up with the Zagreb Tourist Board for a future-forward exhibition. At Christmas, they positioned animated and interactive present packing containers across the metropolis for folks to search out.

Both initiatives created digital reveals firmly rooted in the true world – and demonstrated how tech can be utilized to reinforce tourist points of interest with out the necessity for main infrastructure.

Paphos brings its legendary heritage websites to life by means of your smartphone

Paphos in southwest Cyprus is a well-liked vacationer vacation spot. The coastal metropolis is named the legendary birthplace of Aphrodite, and its historical stays have earned it UNESCO World Heritage Site standing.

Leveraging town’s mythical previous in futuristic vogue, the Paphos tourism board has developed an app that enables customers to convey its fabled historical past to life.

The Aphrodite’s Birthplace app interacts with three completely different scenes of the parable.

“By pointing your device to various locations on the beach, the app allows you to experience an animated Aphrodite in a real-world environment,” explains Nasos Hadjigeorgiou, head of the Paphos regional board of tourism.

Users can view Aphrodite rising from the waves as she is born or spy her stress-free on the seashore in augmented actuality.

“The most important motive for us to make use of AR is to transform the intangible a part of the expertise into tangible, offering digital info and interplay in a real-world setting,” says Nasos.

Soon, culture lovers serious about studying extra about Aphrodite’s fantasy could have a brand new instrument at their service.

“We are within the ultimate stage of growing an entire app in regards to the fantasy of Aphrodite. This will embody info and locations which can be linked with the Goddess’s start and life,” says Nasos.

Besides this new app, the Paphos tourism board has massive plans for its smart tourism undertaking.

“We are additionally investing closely in good indicators, changing static indicators to interactive [ones],” says Nasos. This will convey 360-degree excursions, audio guides in a number of languages, movies and pictures to guests’ fingertips.

What can travellers anticipate from good locations sooner or later?

As the tourism sector continues to embrace know-how, good locations are more likely to turn into the norm.

This can materialise in hundreds of the way, creating smoother, extra memorable and personalised experiences for vacationers.

Museums will turn into extra interactive, landmarks could possibly be digitally overlaid with historic pictures and data, and vacationers may be capable of see how busy points of interest are in actual time to allow them to plan their visits accordingly.

Tourism boards will leverage know-how in ever extra inventive methods, blurring the strains between the digital and bodily worlds. For instance, Visit Sweden not too long ago launched ‘Spellbound by Sweden’, a folklore-filled audiobook whose ending can solely be heard when you’re bodily current in a Swedish forest.

There remains to be an enormous hole to beat between conventional destinations and the good cities we wish to go to. But the developments we’re seeing in tourism already give us a style of what journey can be within the future.