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Designing Digital Solutions in the Cultural Heritage and Tourism Industry for Advancing Visitors’ Experiences: SMEs Needs, Preferences, and Expectations

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Extended Reality (XR Salento 2024)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 15029))

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Abstract

Digital transformation is reshaping business strategies and innovation, by creating new opportunities in different industries. Digital technologies, like eXtended Reality (XR) and Internet of Things (IoT), are rapidly advancing in the field of virtual heritage and tourism industry for improving visitors’ experiences, facilitating user interaction, and promoting cultural knowledge. Despite several digital solutions are proposed in the Cultural Heritage (CH) literature, there is still the need to address some limitations, including the need of differentiating commercial offers in the market. Before designing a digital solution, such as a cloud-based platform for tourists, it is fundamental to identify the key needs and expectations of companies operating in the CH and tourism industry. Through a survey-based questionnaire, this paper aims to investigate the most relevant features, services, and functionalities that CH companies expect to integrate within such solutions. Findings reveal the need to implement cloud-based platforms with XR technologies, IoT, sensors and smart devices to gather data and provide with an immersive, recommended, and customized experience to visitors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Salento, Lecce, Italy

    Vito Del Vecchio, Mariangela Lazoi & Giorgia Specchia

  2. Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy

    Claudio Marche

  3. University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus

    Christos Mettouris

  4. University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain

    Mario Montagud

  5. i2CAT Foundation, Barcelona, Spain

    Mario Montagud

  6. Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid, Jordan

    Mostafa Z. Ali

Authors
  1. Vito Del Vecchio
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  2. Mariangela Lazoi
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  3. Claudio Marche
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  4. Christos Mettouris
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  5. Mario Montagud
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  6. Giorgia Specchia
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  7. Mostafa Z. Ali
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Vito Del Vecchio .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Salento, Lecce, Italy

    Lucio Tommaso De Paolis

  2. University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy

    Pasquale Arpaia

  3. CNR-STIIMA, Lecco, Italy

    Marco Sacco

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Del Vecchio, V. et al. (2024). Designing Digital Solutions in the Cultural Heritage and Tourism Industry for Advancing Visitors’ Experiences: SMEs Needs, Preferences, and Expectations. In: De Paolis, L.T., Arpaia, P., Sacco, M. (eds) Extended Reality. XR Salento 2024. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 15029. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-71710-9_23

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-71710-9_23

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