Future Tourism conference in York

David Ross (University of Exeter) attended the Future Tourism Conference, held in York on the 14th September. Organised by the Tourism Society, the event aimed to debate the growing adoption of digital technologies in the tourism industry. Paul Cook, of Planet Planit, spoke about how tourism businesses and organisations can make best use of customer and visitor data post-GDPR. Ian Ashton and John Gallery presented the case of The World of James Herriot attraction and how an analogue marketing approach has been successful in attracting increasing numbers of national and international visitors. Finally, Richard Bryan, of QA Research, presented a survey on the uses of AR and VR by tourist attractions in the UK. Richard discussed the advantages of AR and VR for enhancing visitor experience, and discussed some challenges that many attractions face when adopting digital technologies for interpretation. The Future Tourism conference provided an excellent opportunity to get a deeper understanding of the current situation of digital technologies in the tourism industry, as well as network and promote the VISTA AR project among industry actors.