History Tourism Might Be Brought Back to Life Through AR

To increase foot traffic and attraction interest in historical attractions, destinations and attractions are investing heavily in virtual and augmented realities technologies.

Last week, a number of attractions, tech providers, and destinations spoke out at the ITB Berlin conference to discuss how these technologies can enhance the visitor experience.

Immersive technologies are improving rapidly and there is a growing interest in integrating them seamlessly into attractions experiences. The 2022 Skift Global Forum was attended by Josh D'Amaro, Disney Parks, Experiences and Products. He called it "next generation storytelling" and said that he wants to see its implementation at Disney's parks and attractions.

Historic Royal Palaces, a charity which manages the UK's unoccupied royal houses, has teamed up with Layered Reality to launch the Gunpowder Plot. This allows visitors to follow the story of 1605's failed assassination plot using a combination of virtual reality, live acting at Tower of London and virtual reality, according to Andrew McGuinness (founder of Layered Reality), at an ITB session entitled "Augmented Reality - The Potential, the Upsell & the Upsell & the Upsell & the Upsell & the Upsell – The Upsell, the Upsell s & The Upsell –The Upsell s -to & The Potential, the Upsell s s -to be a, the Upsell, the Upsell, the Upsell...

Singapore Tourism Board plans to bring attractions to life using augmented reality technology in its plan to increase the "wow factor". CEO Keith Tan spoke at the session "Digital, Personalized and Open: How DMOs Gain Ground In Digital Travel."

Fort Siloso, a World War II fort is one site of focus. "If you go today, you don't know the story, you don't know what happened there," he said. "You just see the cannons and the fort and that's a very poor, very limited experience."

Tan said that Singapore plans to use 5G-powered Augmented Reality Technology to show visitors what World War II was like for Fort's defenders, particularly the British troops.

McGuinness believes that the future of augmented real technology will be in personalization. Visitors will have a personal experience with artificial intelligence even if they are on a group tour.

"It's kind of paradox that we want personalization, but we also want shared experiences. We need to solve that," he mentioned. "Augmented reality and artificial intelligence will definitely allow us to do that."

Source: skift.com