Digital Omotenashi: Toward a Smart Tourism Design Systems

Chaeyoung Lim, Noha Mostafa and Jaehyun Park
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Chaeyoung Lim: Department of Industrial Engineering and Economics, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo 152-8552, Japan
Noha Mostafa: Industrial Engineering Department, Zagazig University, Zagazig 44519, Egypt
Jaehyun Park: Department of Industrial Engineering and Economics, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo 152-8552, Japan

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 12, 1-20

Abstract: The tourism industry is currently facing many challenges; one of the main challenges is the lack of having smart tourism systems that make use of the recent advances in information and communication technology. Another challenge is designing such smart tourism systems while embracing diversified tourists’ sustainable values of experience (functional values, social values, emotional values, and epistemic values). In light of these challenges, the overall objective of this work is to design a smart tourism experience-centered system that considers social and technical perspectives. The Socio-Technical Systems theory was adopted as a theoretical foundation, and the Design Science Research methodology was used to develop a smart tourism system and a practical design artifact. A case study from the Japanese tourism context was studied by exploring tourists’ sustainable values of experiences and local staffs’ behaviors. The main problem was the dysfunctional communication between local service staffs and foreign tourists during the service process. After identifying the problem and the objectives, a relevant smart tourism system was synthesized and tested as a design artifact. The results of the utility test of the proposed artifact showed its effectiveness and efficiency in facilitating the service process and in creating multi-dimensional values of experience.

Keywords: smart tourism; mobile applications; design science; information systems; case study; sustainable values; Japanese tourism; Omotenashi (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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