Tourism 4.0 technologies and tourist experiences: a human-centered design perspective

Building on the momentum of Industry 4.0 developments in production and manufacturing, the tourism-specific concept of Tourism 4.0 currently fuels visions of similar technology-based transformations towards highly interconnected and phygital systems in the tourism industry. There is an implicit assumption that the technological innovations of Tourism 4.0 work better for the benefits of tourists. However, even marvels of tourism information technology often come with a serious lack of human-centered design. The unprecedented speed of development and implementation of Tourism 4.0 technology further adds to this neglect. In addition, traditional approaches to designing the user experience of interactive systems are now seriously challenged by the disruption of traditional views on the goals of system use, more complex user roles, and the dynamic and hybrid context of the use. The powerful capabilities of Tourism 4.0 technologies allow for the enhancement of interaction with a system and enrichment of the tourist experience itself, providing new ways of assisting in behavior change and even in the long-lasting transformation of the users. However, this also means greater potential for harm. This viewpoint conceptualizes three different effects of interactive system use on technology-mediated tourist experiences—besides goal achievement that impacts satisfaction, effects can be goal-limiting (ranging from distracting to damaging) or goal-surpassing (ranging from enhancing to transforming). This conceptualization is then used to frame the importance of human-centered design for emerging Tourism 4.0 technologies.