Digital heritage tourism: Reconfiguring the visitor experience in heritage sites, museums and architecture in the era of pervasive computing

Heritage is a very important motivating factor for tourism. In the past decade, the vast amounts of new media information made available to heritage tourists via the World Wide Web have provided a convenient access to the intended destination image of marketeers and the actual destination image of travellers. The onset of Web 2.0 technology, social media, and mobile technology serves only to diffuse these images to a much wider inter-connected audiences. Other Internet services enhance the practicality of travel planning and reservations. As the personal computing era recedes and gives rise to pervasive technology in an increasingly ambient intelligence-based environment, and advances in the digitally-focused academic community expanded into practical solutions to daily issues, new types of personalised, location-based services emerged. It is in these transitions to Web 3.0 that we should explore and adopt new ways of enriching the heritage tourism experience. Thispaper focuses onnew media-enhanced exploration and learning of culture and heritage. It aims to bridge the continuity of the visitor experience prior to, during, and after the visit, tools for urban heritage managers and how data from the continuity of tourist information processing may be used for planning and sustainable development of heritage sites.