Rediscover herbal lane- enhancing the tourist experience through mobile applications

Abstract

This study explores how to use a mobile service to improve tourists’ experiences when visiting Herbal Lane’s business district in Taipei. In Taiwan, mobile broadband Internet access is very popular, and it can thus support mobile applications to provide visitors with better tourism experiences. We approached the research by conducting a design project. This study developed a mobile application by integrating professional fields including design, information engineering, and traditional Chinese medicine. This study delivered a workable prototype—a mobile application for visiting Herbal Lane. With the workable prototype, we further carried out a user-testing study to understand whether the mobile application can improve visitors’ experience in Herbal Lane district. A total of 114 visitors (61 male and 53 female) were recruited to participate in the user-testing study. The results indicated that the mobile application could improve visitors’ tourism experiences more than those without the mobile application. The mobile application significantly enhanced the visitors’ tourism experience on the four dimensions: enjoyment, novelty, local culture, and involvement. The findings and implications are further discussed in this paper.