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E-Marketing via Augmented Reality: A Case Study in theTourism and Hospitality Industry

Neda Shabani, Student Member, IEEE, Arslan Munir, Senior Member, IEEE, and Azizul Hassan

Abstract—Marketing plays an extremely significant role in the success of any business. In hospitality and tourism industry, marketingis a key tool to introduce various destinations to the customers and attract them to visit a place or stay in a particular hotel. The formsof marketing have considerably evolved during the past decades owing to the enhancements in technology. e-Marketing is a recentproduct of this evolution that has revolutionized the world of marketing and has created a huge impact on different businesses andindustries, including hospitality and tourism industry, from many aspects such as customer satisfaction and revenue growth. In recentyears, augmented reality has been used as a tool to boost e-Marketing in many ways due to its unique features and capabilities. In thisarticle, we discuss how augmented reality has revolutionized e-marketing in the context of hospitality and tourism industry. We furtherreview the successful integration of augmented reality in e-marking for hospitality and tourism industry with a few real life examples anduse cases.

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1 WHAT IS e-MARKETING?

MARKETING has been in existence for centuriessince the humans started trading to cater human-

centred demands. However, the form of marketing hastransformed over periods of time. In recent decades,marketing has revamped from conventional to non-conventional and then online composition. All of thesetransformations are aimed at improving the effectivenessand efficiency of marketing.

Among different types of marketing strategies, e-Marketing is the one that has received the most attentionrecently due to a multitude of reasons. However, beforewe mention the reasons of e-Marketing’s eminence, let’sfirst define the e-Marketing terminology. e-Marketingin its simplest manner can be defined as electronicmarketing aimed to apply both the techniques andprinciples of marketing through the use of electronicmedia and more often the Internet [1]. e-Marketing isthe outcome of modern and developed communicationsystems, where the Internet is the key platform. e-Marketing is entirely technology focused and hasreplaced the centuries of old marketing principlesand tactics. e-Marketing embraces newer routes formarketing communications that do not necessarily existin the conventional marketing systems.

e-Marketing can play a vital role in the successof a business, product, or service. One of the mainrequirements for running a successful business, is todeeply understand the customers’ needs, demands,preferences, responses, and attitudes towards aparticular product or service. In marketing, themeasurement of post-purchase consumer responses andbehaviour is extremely significant for the businessesto enhance the quality of their products and/orservices. These behaviors and responses can appearin many forms, such as feedbacks, replies, reactions,or comments. Since the interaction between productor service providers and consumers are fundamentalin creating and maintaining functional relationships;

e-Marketing provides businesses, products, and servicesthe opportunity to communicate and interact with theirboth existing and potential customers. By adoptinge-marketing, businesses can ensure efficiency, thebetter return of investment, and enhanced profitabilitythat lead to increased cost effectiveness. Furthermore,campaigns in e-Marketing boost online sales byattracting potential consumer bases and by minimizingnegative risks.

In the context of tourism and hospitality industry,the interaction and communication with the consumersmust be more focused due to the specific natureof this industry. We would like to emphasize thatthe tourism and hospitality industry is a serviceindustry. To market any service industry, the first thingto consider is the uniqueness of all services alongwith the personalization and customization of services.Some of the unique characteristics of tourism andhospitality industry services that make its marketingmethods distinct from other industries are perishability,inseparability, intangibility, heterogeneity, seasonality,agreeability, inconsistency, imitability, and inflexibility.Besides all these unique characteristics, the consumer-oriented nature of tourism and hospitality industry playsa significant role for choosing a right and effectivemarketing strategy for this industry. In many cases,e-Marketing has become an essential ingredient toan existing or potential business enterprise related totourism and hospitality industry. Selecting an effectivetechnology (for e-marketing) and proper use of it isa critical key to help tourism and hospitality activistsachieving their objectives and goals.

2 AUGMENTED REALITY FOR e-MARKETINGThe Boeing researcher Thomas Caudell coined the termaugmented reality (AR) in 1990, when he inventedthe technology to help aircraft workers in assemblinglong bundles of wires for the new 777 jetliner asan alternative to the costly diagrams and marking

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devices. Since then, the AR has gained more traction inrecent years due to further advances in sensors, optics,computer vision, image processing, audio processing,and computing. From the computer science perspective,AR is a direct or indirect real-time (live) viewof a physical/real environment whose elements areaugmented or superimposed with computer-generatedperceptual information potentially across a multitude ofsensor modalities including but not limited to visual,auditory, and haptic, etc. Vivian Rosenthal, the founderof GoldRun, a New York City-based AR start-up, hasdefined AR as “Augmented Reality is a digital layer overthe real world that you can’t see with the naked eye,but you can see with the camera on your smartphone orcomputer” [2].

The AR technology is a shift from the earliertechnology version: virtual reality (VR). Both VR andAR are anticipated to be disruptive technologies withapplications not only in entertainment but also inbusiness and education [3]. AR differs from VR asVR is an artificial, computer-generated simulation thatcreates a virtual environment very similar to the reallife and makes it difficult for users to recognize thatthe environment/experience is not real, whereas AR isa mixture of real life and VR. VR enables the usersto interact with by wearing VR helmet or goggles.On the other hand, AR developers creates images andcomputer-generated enhancements in applications thatenable the users to combine those with real life, andthus permits interaction with VR in real life. In AR, theaugmentation techniques are often performed in real-time when integrating the digital information with theuser’s environment.

Characteristically, AR technology is a realitysimulation by computer-generated visuals where auser can experience a reality in a virtually createdenvironment [4][5]. The AR brings two widely diversedynamics: personal exclusivity perception and asensory experience that is commonly multidimensional.AR has numerous applications in consumer electronics,entertainment, marketing and business. Hence, evenwithout realising, almost all consumers are, more orless, familiar with the experience that AR can generate.The revenue generated from AR was 2.39 billion USDin 2016 and is projected to reach 120 billion USD in2020 [6].

The use of AR technology in marketing is seeminglyless expensive than conventional marketing approaches.Print-based advertising and marketing campaigns arerelatively more expensive and require continuousinvestment of resources. On the other hand, AR asa computer-based technology is less expensive as itcan be used in digital platforms or online. Althoughthe development cost to setup AR-based marketingcampaigns might be higher, the lifetime operating costmostly remains stationary. This claim is evident fromthis statement of Rosenthal: “It honestly depends onthe scope of the project, but AR campaigns can be as

Fig. 1: An augmented reality application in tourism.

inexpensive as $5,000 and as high as $100,000. That’snothing compared to print, and in many ways it’s worththe risk in my eyes” [2].

3 AUGMENTED REALITY IN TOURISM ANDHOSPITALITY INDUSTRY e-MARKETING

The main drive behind tourism and hospitality industryis the people that travel to different destinationsfor a variety of purposes, such as visiting thedestination for recreational purposes, medical purposes,pilgrimage, meeting relatives, business purposes, andmany more. Thus, tourism and hospitality industryprovides substantial revenue for a country. However,the tourism in a particular country/place is oftenrestricted by many reasons including consumers trustdeficit of available tourism services, insufficient securitymeasures, travel scams and frauds in tourism spots [7].Hence, it is extremely vital for tourism and hospitalitymarketers to introduce and market a destination in thebest possible way to attract the most number of travellersand to alleviate the tourists’ apprehensions regardingthese destinations. In particular, tourism and hospitalitymarketers can leverage AR to mitigate the tourists’concerns by various means, such as providing real-timetravel assistance and augmented maps with markersand information regarding shops, grocery stores, touristattractions, gas stations, hospitals, emergency help,banks, post offices, cafes, gyms, cinemas, etc., asillustrated in Fig. 1.

In tourism and hospitality industry, the AR providessignificant advantages over conventional broadcast orprint advertising in terms of application and usability.A basic feature of AR that warrants its integrationin tourism destination marketing is its simplicity. TheAR technology is viewed as simplistic, while havingthe ability to connect closely with target consumerbases. The content and features of a tourism destinationcan be viewed more congenially by superimposing avirtual environment with reality. For example, the St.Petersburg/Clearwater is augmented with an innovativeAR technology application [8].

In tourism and hospitality industry, which solelyrelies on offering services, the word-of-mouth has a

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special place. The word-of-mouth is directly relatedto expressing human feelings and emotions towardsdifferent experiences. The AR applications can bolsterthe emotional connection of tourists to destinationsthat in turn leads to repeated sales and business.The establishment of this connection between serviceproviders and consumers is also supported by Rosenthal:“It’s not just a matter of taking photos and sharing,which is what we’re building. But what really matters tous is the ability to take photos with virtual characters,products and environments, which is where it willresonate most and develop that deep brand connection”[2].

According to Hassan and Shabani [9], tourismdestination marketing or advertising based on ARapplications can grab attention of particular tourismcustomers. In particular, one of the goals of ARin hospitality and tourism industry is to reach themillennials. The AR can be purposefully applied tocreate appeals and to attract younger demographictourists that often have a common interest in innovativetechnology usage. Some of the AR applications thathave enhanced the experience of consumers includeinteractive travel guides, social travel gamification, citytours, real-time navigation and direction, augmentedhotel environment and room booking, interactive hotelrooms, augmented language translation, augmentedaccess to dining and entertainment centres, participativedestination management, augmented transportation,augmented services in restaurants, re-living historicplaces and events, augmented reality browsersincorporated in destinations, and finally museuminteractivity. The increasing growth of social mediaconnects consumers (including millennials) by makinga network of like-minded people that allows furthercapitalization of innovative technologies such as AR.

The incorporation of AR in marketing and advertisingcampaigns can offer a variety of benefits to tourismdestination marketers. The AR campaign offers closepertinence to target consumer bases that is relativelylong lasting. The AR enables greater involvement of bothmarketers and consumers with brands by increasingtheir abilities to make positive sale and purchasedecisions, respectively. The AR allows interactiveconsumption experiences prior, during, and postpurchase stages to make memorable familiarities.Specifically, the ability of AR to offer personal andcustomized feelings to the target consumers playsa central role in the success of AR in hospitalityand tourism industry. This customization allows widerinterconnectivity and interactivity in both selling andpurchasing process. Hence, the AR can create a bridgebetween the offered and purchased products andservices.

Although AR is a revolutionizing technology for e-marketing with a variety of benefits, the integrationof AR in tourism destination marketing is relatively acomplex process [10]. The application of AR for tourism

Fig. 2: Augmented reality museum.

destination marketing needs expertise and resources. Atan early stage, the demand for an AR application needsto be recognized and established. The hospitality andtourism marketers need to explain the added benefitsthat AR provides, such as combining real and virtualimages in real-time and the ability to interact with virtualcontent. Oftentimes, it is better to consider AR as anaddition to the existing marketing and advertising toolsto make the most efficient use of the AR technology. Inother words, the AR needs to be an added but not theonly strategy to serve specific objectives. Since the ARtechnology is rather innovative and new, it is propitiousto capitalize the maximum benefits in unique ways andpulling it off effectively.

4 USE CASES AND EXAMPLESThere are many use cases of AR in tourism andhospitality industry, however, below are severalselected examples that successfully incorporate AR inbusiness marketing and have resulted in both increasedprofitability and customer satisfaction:

Augmented Reality Museum: The augmented realitymuseum is a strategy employed by some museums tosuperimpose the virtual world over the real world toprovide visitors with a vivid view and understandingof the origins, history, and details of various exhibitsand artifacts. The AR museums integrate and/or blenddigital information with live video or the user’senvironment in real-time using special 3D AR softwareprograms [11]. Fig. 2 illustrates the usage of AR in anAR museum.

Inamo Restaurant in London: The Inamo restaurantis identified as the world’s very first extraordinaryrestaurant that offers a dining experience with aunique combination of the Far Eastern feeling in theWestern locale. The virtual environment furnished bythe branded E-TableTM, chef camera, puzzles, Battleshipsgame, information browsing on the local areas, andeven booking a taxi are all relatively new in thehospitality industry not only in London but also in theworld. In Inamo, customers can order food and drinksby using AR technology-enabled menus placed oncustom-designed customer serving tables. These tables

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work as electronic display boards as well as electronicpoint-of-sale (EPOS) terminals. The tables incorporate awaterproof touch panel operated by Bluetooth wirelesstechnology. Each table is equipped with a high-qualityprojector and a computer that steers the interactiveAR applications and also communicates with thecentral server system. The central server incorporatesvarious tools including business logic, which define therestaurant operational aspects. Furthermore, the centralserver drives the printers in the bar and kitchen.

To get a better understanding of the customers’perspective on the usage of AR in hospitality andtourism industry, we interviewed a few customers of theInamo restaurant in London. After asking a couple ofsemi-structured interview questions, we observed someinteresting opinion from those customers regarding AR.

According to the respondent 1: “The hospitalityindustry marketers in London mostly retain a set levelof technological standard that actually makes theirconsumers to become capable to use a new technology”.

Respondent 2 reported: “Augmented reality draws theline that tends to exist between the real and the digitalby using an appropriate technology”.

Respondent 3 viewed AR as entertaining andcommented: “Gastronomy is mostly about experienceswhere AR technology is seemingly also very interestingwith the involvement of entertaining features”.

According to respondent 4: “In a technology-inducedhospitality business market, there are many websites,blogs or online media allowing customers to getinvolved, to get attached and to express new ideas.The customers in Inamo have competitive operationalknowledge of a technology. This customer groupnormally reads online reviews of early customers inInamo. Also, they follow videos and reviews on popularonline streaming media such as YouTube and manyothers”.

Kuoni Travel: This is a tourism company thatcollaborates with Aurasma as an AR specialist andmakes AR available for its customers. Kuoni Travelcustomers can view AR-enabled services or productsoffered by the company on their Smartphone ortablets. The AR technology makes online displays andadvertisements of Kuoni Travel artistic and lively.

5 CONCLUSIONSInnovative technologies have been consistently makingsignificant improvements in tourism and hospitalitybusiness services. Augmented reality (AR) is a bloominginnovative technology that has helped the e-Marketers intourism and hospitality industry to enhance their servicequality and create value to their consumers. The usageof AR in hospitality and tourism industry has exceededconsumer expectation and satisfaction by creating amemorable experience. Since AR is a new technologyand a limited research has been done so far, especiallyin the context of tourism and hospitality industry, futureresearch and innovation in AR technology have the

potential to make a huge impact in this industry andgenerate tremendous revenues.

Acknowledgments: We would like to acknowledgePrasanna Kansakar for his help with the figures.

REFERENCES

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Neda Shabani is a PhD student in the College of Human Ecology,Department of Hospitality Management at Kansas State University,Manhattan, KS. Shabani has an MS in Hospitality and TourismManagement from the University of South Florida, Sarasota-Manatee.Her research interests include information technology in hospitalityindustry, computer architecture, augmented reality, cybersecurity, andbig data. Contact her at nshabani@ksu.edu.

Arslan Munir is an assistant professor in the Department of ComputerScience at Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS. Munir has aPhD in electrical and computer engineering from the University ofFlorida, Gainesville. His research interests include embedded andcyber-physical systems, cybersecurity, computer architecture, parallelcomputing, and fault tolerance. He’s a Senior Member of IEEE. Contacthim at amunir@ksu.edu.

Azizul Hassan is a member of the Tourism Consultants Networkof the UK Tourism Society, and is currently working towards a PhDat Cardiff Metropolitan University. His research interests includetechnology-supported marketing in tourism, innovative marketingdynamics, destination branding in tourism, cultural heritage tourism,heritage interpretation, and sustainable management/marketingalternatives for cultural heritage industries. Contact him atm.hassan15@outlook.cardiffmet.ac.uk.