City Connections

The City Connections project focused on digitally enhanced tourism, by exploiting the contextual footprint to enrich the entire visiting experience, to develop new types of visitor activity, and to benefit the regional economy.

Using Nottingham as the pilot, we engaged a wide group of stakeholders in tourism across the City of Nottingham in a process of critique, envisioning and participatory design of technology-enhanced visiting. We tapped into their interests, professional judgements and knowledge of how people connect and engage with the city at present, as well as how they envisage future applications of digital media and technology might enhance the visitor experiences of Nottinghamshire.

Experian collaborated with Horizon in conducting a study on the use of smartphone applications within the business arena.

The survey found that smartphone owners travelled more than non-owners and used internet services more frequently, especially social networking. It also found that users engaged with a range of mobile applications at different stages of their trip experiences.

There are a range of issues facing destination marketing organisations and tourism stakeholders associated with the use of mobile digital technology in visitor experiences.