The role of information and communication technologies in cultural tourists’ journeys: the case of a World Heritage Site

ABSTRACT

Information- and Communication Technologies (ICTs) play an increasingly important role in cultural and heritage tourism. Therefore, it is crucial for cultural institutions, and heritage sites as part of it, not only to understand what kind of ICTs their visitors actually use and why but also what kind of ICTs are used in what phase of the customer journey. However, there is still a lot of information missing on the demand side. This study attempts to close this research gap with a visitor survey at the Zollverein UNESCO World Heritage Site. Our results show that, currently, heritage visitors are using ICTs primarily to obtain information, to better plan their visit and to better understand the cultural offerings. At all stages, the website is by far the most frequently used ICT. By contrast, new technologies, such as augmented reality, are still barely used and to some extent even unknown. Our results permit important insights for a considerate use of scarce resources, especially in heritage tourism practice, particularly with regard to what kind of ICTs should be given priority. They confirm that different visitors segments have different preferences and they also show that it is highly necessary to communicate the availability of ICTs.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural tourism
• heritage marketing
• customer journey
• Information- and Communication Technologies (ICTs)
• visitor survey

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andrea Hausmann

Andrea Hausmann is Full Professor and Head of the Institute of Cultural Management at University of Education Ludwigsburg, Germany. Professor Hausmann received her Doctorate in Business Administration from the University of Düsseldorf, Germany. Her work focuses on cultural marketing and cultural tourism, human-resources management and entrepreneurship in the cultural and creative industries. Professor Hausmann is author of several books and editor of ‘Arts and Cultural Management,’ a multi-volume German book series on relevant topics on contemporary arts management. She is also author of many scholarly articles and frequently serves as reviewer for international journals, conferences and research agencies. She regularly presents on national and international conferences and is frequently called upon to give seminars on arts management both in Germany and other countries like the U.S., Australia, Italy, Poland and India.

Sarah Schuhbauer

Sarah Schuhbauer is Research Associate at the Institute of Cultural Management at University of Education Ludwigsburg, Germany. Since October 2018, Sarah Schuhbauer has also been a doctoral student under Prof. Dr. Andrea Hausmann. Before that she already worked as a student research assistant for Prof. Dr. Andrea Hausmann. Her work focuses on cultural tourism, cultural marketing and empirical research methods. She has a master's degree in Cultural Management from the Institute of Cultural Management at University of Education Ludwigsburg. She also has practical experiences in Germany and abroad, including the areas of (cultural) tourism and cultural office.