Romblon islands into a smart tourism destination through point of interest recommender, augmented reality and near field communication: A proposal

Abstract

The Philippine tourism industry is expected to grow with more tourists visiting and through the discovery, development, and improvement of tourist attractions. Through partnerships with the local government and media developer groups, there have been implementations of e-Tourism in the country. Though e-Tourism is an effective way of tourism promotion, smart tourism offers a more innovative way such that it enhances the tourist experience through anticipation of their needs through smart recommendations of points of interests, attractions and services while sharing their experiences to aid other tourists’ decision making on which places to visit. Smart tourism is a fundamental need for such cities or municipalities which have historical value and tourist attractions. Due to this, the study aims at creating a smart tourism destination framework that would be applicable to the current information and communications infrastructure of the Romblon Islands. A smart tourism mobile application will be developed that would feature a Point of Interest Recommender based on user’s location, check-in ratings, and social network ratings. Augmented reality and near field communication will be used to bridge the physical and digital world. The application’s acceptance will be investigated using the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology.