A pervasive and mobile computing approach to promote heritage of a city

Abstract

Cultural heritage is an extremely valuable set of materiality, traditions and knowledge from the Past that should be used to better understand the Past itself. However, even nowadays, there are still some difficulties to manage, preserve and disseminate cultural heritage. In this sense, the first step that we should take after preserving the heritage is to develop solutions that enable effective and democratic ways to promote it. This promotion starts with the ability of those who visit this heritage to be able to know and enjoy it. Information and Communication Technologies and specifically Pervasive and Mobile Computing ones represent nowadays a big opportunity to develop innovative solutions capable to inform tourists about heritage and even enable them to experience past realities related to immaterial heritage like ancestral legends and past events even with no longer existing physical patrimony. This paper starts to make a reflection of the evolution, the Information and Communication Technologies role on tourism and present a technological architecture to respond to the challenge of promoting heritage and informing tourists in their travel experiences. After that, the paper presents also a developed prototype created to the Portuguese City of Mirandela which was capable to promote its historical and gastronomic heritage and also support the tours of the tourists through its territory. Finally, some remarks about the future growing and directions for technology applied to tourism are made. ; UNIAG, R&D unit funded by the FCT – Portuguese Foundation for the Development of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education. UID/GES/4752/2016. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion