Abstract
For certain mountain regions, tourism appears as the most prominent developmental perspective. Therefore, promoting and underpinning the unique natural, morphological, and cultural traits of such regions are essential to enhance their economies in a proper and sustainable manner. Zagori, Greece, is a typical example of such regions because of its rich natural and cultural heritage. Nowadays, e-tourism emerges as one of the most popular means of tourism services. There are many commercial e-tourism applications that offer valuable services. However, they do not address certain limitations sufficiently. One of the typical problems is that of misinformation or information overload. Although this applies mainly in urban areas, the existence of a large city close to a mountain region could confuse the visitor because of the many and spatially concentrated points of interest in this urban area compared to the more sparse ones in the mountains. Thus, it is important to design the pertinent application both to be adjusted to the visitor’s preferences and to highlight the local advantages of a region. Moreover, mountainous regions require extra services to provide security details, especially during activities in the wilderness. Another significant issue is that of visual occlusion and user disorientation induced by the rugged terrain and the landscape heterogeneity, regarding the matter of navigating and finding areas of interest. To tackle these issues, the respective solutions are employed: (1) providing a properly classified content, particularly for the specific area of study, attached to a user-friendly interface giving the ability to switch between natural and cultural points of interest in a handy manner; (2) enabling alerts to inform the users about certain risks concerning dangerous routes or harsh conditions; (3) and integrating augmented reality (AR) with dynamic viewshed (2D visibility) maps to navigate through the mountain environment. The combination of these state-of-the-art technologies furnishes great opportunities to overcome the distinctive mountainous geography. In this chapter, we explore the possibilities of an e-tourism application that implements the aforementioned solutions. In addition, by fitting the design and architecture of this application to the specific characteristics of Zagori, a general framework of e-tourism services oriented to mountainous areas is suggested.
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Panagiotopoulos, G., Misthos, LM., Kaliampakos, D. (2016). Beyond Existing e-Tourism for Mountains: Findings from the Case of Zagori, Greece. In: Koulov, B., Zhelezov, G. (eds) Sustainable Mountain Regions: Challenges and Perspectives in Southeastern Europe. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27905-3_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27905-3_9
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