The Travel Machine: Combining Information Design/Visualization with Persuasion Design to Change Travel Behavior

Abstract

Travel and tourism is a booming sector of the twenty-first-century world economy. The number of people visiting foreign cities and countries has been continuously increasing over the last decades. Despite numerous positive trends, there are, however, also critics who deplore some current developments in this industry. They argue that, due to the democratization and facilitation of traveling, it has become a mere consumption good, a commodity, and that hence the actual essence of travel and “touring” is becoming lost. According to these critics (e.g., MacCannell, The Tourist. A New Theory of the Leisure Class, University of California Presss, 1999), the original and fundamental ideas of visiting foreign places would be the discovery of different cultures; the interaction with local people; the temporary immersion in a distinct, and different, way of life; and thus an overall process of intercultural learning and self-development. However, in an era of increasing leisure tourism or “part-time leisure tourism” tacked on to business trips, these elements risk fading more and more into the background.

Therefore, the Travel Machine project of 2012 researched, analyzed, designed, and evaluated effective ways to foster a shift from leisure tourism to cultural tourism by changing people’s travel behavior in the short and in the long term. The main objective is to motivate and persuade people, especially travelers aged up to 50 years and from higher to average economic and educational demographics, to open themselves up more intensely towards the local population and culture of a destination, and to make out of their trip a deeper, personally enriching, and educational experience. For this objective, a well-designed mobile phone application prototype, the Travel Machine, was conceived by the author’s firm, combining information design/visualization and persuasion design. This chapter explains the development of the Travel Machine’s user interface and its use of information design, information visualization, and persuasion design.