ABOUT THE PROJECT:
A Middle Eastern Tourism Department partnered with Singularity Group to create and prototype new solutions for their tourism industry. We began this journey with a creation of a list of 20 concepts, scenarios, and trends at the intersection of exponential technologies and tourism. We then conducted a Solution Sprint Workshop in which we guided the company and key stakeholders through our design thinking process to brainstorm new products and services.
Team:Joanna Hildebrand (Design Research and Concept Development)Christine Miller Kelly (Team Lead)Ben Murphy (Project Manager)Sally Dominguez (Facilitator and Researcher)Imogen Speer (Concept Development)
The following images highlight key questions and concepts that came out of the workshop.
Concept Directions
Following the Solutions Sprint Workshop, the team captured 7 concept directions to evaluate for the prototyping sprint.
Global Cuisine
Tolerance
Digital Citizenship
Travel Buddy
Manipulating Microclimates
#MyOasis
Medical Tourism
Augmented Reality menus that showcase meals. AR adds depth to the food experience by breaking down ingredients and nutritional information to adapt to health needs, as well as layering in the cultural significance of each meal.
Reusable glass bottles contain a QR code that gives info about city maps and other tourism benefits. Free refill stations throughout the city with water produced through capturing humidity from air. Test whether humidity refill stations could create new dryer microclimates within the city.
A series of clouds and shade structures at local and city level would enable tourists to do the same activities in summer as they do in winter. Atmospheric geoengineering involves creating artificial shade and reflecting sun at atmospheric level and is a concept already in development around the world. This idea explores creating a physical cloud to change the climate.
Travel Buddy is an app that suggests 1, 2 and 3 day itineraries customized to each traveler. These itineraries are constructed based on data from travelers with similar interests, budget, and amount of time traveling. Based on feedback upon the completion of an itinerary, the AI gets more fine tuned.
Virtual Country is a VR platform that can be accessed by the world. The experience puts you there with the addition of smell sensors + heat technology. User can establish a “digital citizenship” that allows for free access/no borders to participating countries and allows them to become virtual members of society.
We narrowed concepts further down to 3 and prototyped 1.
Supporting Materials.
User Persona Example
Customer Journey Map Example
Customer Journey Map Example
Information Architecture Example