Tourists & Digital Technologies

Slow travel

The slow travel movement is inspired by travel writers of the last century (think e.g Theophile Gautier) and puts emphasis on connecting actively with communities encountered while travelling. Says their website:

Over the last few hundred years there has been a subtle shift in how we think about travel. Dante’s journey through the three realms of the dead can be read as an intriguing piece of travel writing. Homer’s Odyssey is an equally fabulous travel narrative. Yet travel has somehow slipped out of fashion. True, we fly hither and thither, but travel is rarely valued for its own sake. Instead it is recast as a minor inconvenience that somehow intervenes between our point of departure and our intended destination. The pleasure of the journey is eclipsed by anticipation of arrival. To get there fast is better than to travel slow.

I find the whole “slow” movement a tad to sanctimonious and self important at times, but slow travel really resonates with some of the thoughts I have had around tourists and digital technologies. Now, if we could combine slow travel somehow with Redström and Halnäs thoughts on slow technologies for reflection (PDF), we’d have accomplished something…

Workshop on Context Based Services in Tourism

Interesting workshop this summer in Bournemouth;

“Context Based Services is emerging as a key research area and a great business opportunity and challenge. This is particularly the case in Tourism where location and context based services will be used for serving the travellers of the future. The aim of this workshop is to bring together industry leaders with scholars and researchers with an interest in the interaction between Context Based Services, technology and Tourism. The workshop is designed to facilitate the sharing of ideas on all aspects of the topic and to encourage/facilitate innovative and in-depth analysis with a view to downstream practical applications and outcomes. Participants may engage with the workshop in a variety of ways with or without presentation. Options include the production of a discussion paper or short abstract which will form the basis of collaborative discussion after a short oral presentation. Additionally there is the opportunity to submit a full paper for peer review and formal presentation towards the development of a special issues in JITT.”