Collecting the Memories: The Potential of Augmented Reality Souvenirs in Agro-Tourism

Abstract

Souvenirs are an essential artifact in tourism because tourists want to keep a memory of the places they visit. Despite the enormous variation in souvenirs, there are no decent souvenirs for agro-tourism in Indonesia. Agro-tourism allows tourists to experience the natural beauty of landscapes and to be exposed to farming products, making the agricultural products the souvenirs themselves. Some Indonesian agro-tourism provides undifferentiated souvenirs like keychains or T-shirts that exhibit the place’s logo, which we perceive as an opportunity to develop a novel design of souvenir. Our previous study about augmented reality products in agro-tourism delivered good outcomes but needs further research. This article explored the potential of developing agro-tourism souvenirs with technology to engage tourist enthusiasm with augmented reality. The researchers conducted literature studies, interviews and product testings to answer the main research question: “What is the tourist attitude towards augmented reality souvenirs in Indonesian agro-tourism?”. The findings during the prototype trial indicated that augmented reality souvenirs could escalate tourism experiences. However, we found there was a problem in human-computer interaction: some of the target audience’s tools cannot support the technology. Although the immersive sensation from augmented reality souvenirs potentially enhances the tourist experience, future studies about the effectiveness of its more extended implementation are necessary. Keywords: augmented reality souvenir, agro-tourism, souvenir, digital souvenir