Agora Software

e-tourism: boost your city’s communication

Featured image e-tourisme

Tourists or simple visitors to a monument, a city or a territory are no different from other people.

They are looking for simplicity, time savings and the ability to quickly organize their stay.

The tourism sector has largely undertaken its digital shift. More than 79% of tourists prepare their trip on the Internet, 55% book it online.

M-tourism” (e-tourism via cell phones) is growing rapidly. 58% of French people who left in 2018 used their mobile or tablet to prepare their leisure stays.

Leaflets, advertisements, websites, online reservations and mobile applications are playing their part. But today, how to put aside social networks?

In France, the average time spent on these networks is nearly two hours per day!

It is not a question of copying the undeniable capacities and benefits of these different media, but of bringing a complementary way of interacting with visitors.

In particular, to make actions that are themselves quite simple, that require a too deep selection process, many parameters or to exchange too confidential information, increasingly simple.

Répartition des compétences

Social networks 

Even if France (and other European countries) does not hold the record for the amount of time spent on social networks, our fellow citizens spend a considerable amount of time on them to exchange, share, inform themselves, have fun…

The graph below ranks the main social networks worldwide. To these, we should add the usual communication applications, notably WhatsApp and SMS.

Top 10 Réseaux sociaux dans le monde

Permanent programs and one-time events

Permanent heritage 

The permanent heritage is composed of historical monuments, museums, remarkable sites… on the territory. The elements to be communicated are the information on what can be found there, the schedules, the prices, the possible means of reservation, the addresses, etc.

Ideas for walks and outings can help you organize a quick trip to discover a new territory or simply the place where you live every day…

One-time events 

These are events of various kinds, but they last from a few hours to a few days and often attract many visitors: cultural and sporting events, local celebrations, music festivals, heritage days, etc.

Example of interactions on social networks

Below are some examples of interactions between a visitor and data concerning either an event or the permanent heritage of a community (there can be multiple formulations for the same intention):

  • What are the events of type (visits, museum, concert, animation, sport, culture…) [available on “day” between “hour” and “hour”]?
  • What is the address of “visit”?
  • What are the hours of “visit”?
  • How to book “visit”?
  • How much does it cost to visit “visit”?
  • What is the content of “visit”?
  • Give me suggestions [of type ] [the “day” between “hour” and “hour”] ?
  • How to get to “visit”?
  • What is the weather forecast for “day” between “hour” and “hour”]?
  • What is the air quality?
  • I want to leave my opinion on “visit”

 

E-tourism interactions

 

Success factors

In our opinion, the main success factors for accessing tourist information from a social network are the following

  • Simplicity of registration on the social media. Ideally, scanning a QR code that will be used on other publications (physical or virtual) of the territory should be enough to connect from the social network of your choice.
  • Selection of the proposed information. Be brief and specific; do not try to copy the website that organizes and proposes a larger amount of information with photos, maps, etc.; the value proposition of the access to the social network must be clear.
  • Multilingual: France is visited by many non-French speaking tourists, so it is necessary to be able to exchange in a friendly way with them; consequently, many foreign languages must be supported.
  • Omnichannel: offer the main communication channels already used by visitors. They should not have to sign up for a new network but rather be able to use the ones they already use.
    Quality of responses. Nothing is more disappointing than a conversational interface that stumbles on simple questions, or simply does not answer. The visitor will forgive not knowing how to handle a very complex request, but will be intractable on “common sense” expressions.
  • Fluidity of dialogues: get into the spirit of social networks and aim for short and relevant exchanges rather than useless convolutions.

If you are interested in this article, you could read Cross-functionality, a source of performance for the digital city or go directly to the page dedicated to cities.

Find us on our LinkedIn page

Want to understand how our conversational AI platform optimizes your users’ productivity and engagement by effectively complementing your enterprise applications?