=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-3336/paper5
|storemode=property
|title=Smart Tourism: Mobile Application with Augmented Reality to Promote the Use of Virtual Tourism for the Archaeological Zone of Caral, Peru
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3336/paper5.pdf
|volume=Vol-3336
|authors=Eduardo Franco Mego Aragón,Christian Ovalle Paulino
}}
==Smart Tourism: Mobile Application with Augmented Reality to Promote the Use of Virtual Tourism for the Archaeological Zone of Caral, Peru==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3336/paper5.pdf
Smart Tourism: Mobile Application with Augmented Reality
to Promote the Use of Virtual Tourism for the Archaeological
Zone of Caral, Peru
Eduardo Franco Mego Aragón 1, Christian Ovalle Paulino2
1,2
Universidad Tecnología del Perú, Av. Arequipa 265, Lima, Perú
Abstract
Due to COVID-19, the tourism sector had a loss of visitor revenue of 56%. For tourism in
Caral, Peru for 2020 there was a 95% reduction in the annual number of visitors expected.
Therefore, the research aims to develop a mobile application for Android with augmented
reality to show 3D models and audiovisual content that allows to promote the use of virtual
tourism for the archaeological zone of Caral, Peru. To this end, an applied research is developed
with a quantitative approach following an experimental methodological design through the pre-
experimental method for which a sample of 50 users was taken. To measure this experiment
was based on the use of indicators of time of use of the application and the use of augmented
reality in the application. The results obtained an average time of use of the application of
0:08:25 minutes while the average time of use of augmented reality in the application was
0:03:36 minutes. Likewise, the results show a great interest on the part of users towards the
implementation of augmented reality in an application focused on tourism.
Keywords 1
Augmented reality, smart tourism, virtual tourism, mobile app
1. Introduction
Tourism worldwide in countries means a large percentage of GDP, reaching up to more than 20%
in some of these. However, during the first period of COVID-19, the entry of tourists worldwide de-
creased by 56% and there were losses of 320 million dollars [1]. For example, tourism in Peru has been
one of the most important economic activities, reaching 3.9% of GDP in 2019 with revenues of 4,784
million dollars [2]. However, with the appearance of the COVID-19 pandemic the country was affected,
harming all economic sectors, thus causing a 75% drop at the financial level [3]. In this way it happened
in the archaeological city of Caral during 2020, which had a reduction of 95% of the annual number of
visitors expected which led to a loss in their income of that percentage [4]. This led the tourism sector
to think about a restructuring necessary for the reopening and sustainability of the business. This re-
structuring focused on allowing the business to be sustainable and to be able to achieve digitalization
with the use of information technologies. From this search by tourism businesses, the concept of smart
tourist destinations is known. This would seek to have a cutting-edge technological infrastructure in-
cluded in its processes and services, allowing to ensure that its development is sustainable [5]. In this
way we have the concept of smart tourism, which can prepare a recovery of the business together with
the most innovative information technologies [6]. One of the technologies that have been integrated to
display information is augmented reality. Which has proven to be an innovative opportunity that focuses
on user interaction [7]. Therefore, augmented reality has been part of the technologies proposed to im-
plement smart tourism [8]. Also, part of this solution is virtual tourism, which allows greater access to
tourism and technology remotely [9]. This led to the development of smart tourism in Europe and Asia.
Which, in 2021, Peru reached an agreement with Spain, considered a pioneer country of smart tourism,
to develop the concept of Smart Tourism in the country [10], [11]. In recent research it has been pro-
posed to integrate augmented reality through mobile applications to display information interactively
ITHGC 2022: III International Tourism, Hospitality & Gastronomy Congress, October 27–28, 2022, Lima, Peru
EMAIL: 1612317@utp.edu.pe (Eduardo Franco Mego Aragón); c19349@utp.edu.pe (A. 2);
ORCID: 0000-0003-4653-5708 (Eduardo Franco Mego Aragón); 0000-0002-5559-5684 (Christian Ovalle Paulino);
©️ 2022 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org)
[12], [13]. As well, develop virtual tourism as an alternative for a new experience and interest for tourists
[14]. Therefore, one of the objectives of the research is focused on analyzing the current context of
tourism in Caral as well as identifying the necessary requirements to develop virtual tourism through a
mobile application with augmented reality. With this, it is proposed to develop a mobile application
with augmented reality with the purpose of promoting the use of virtual tourism for the archaeological
site of Caral. Therefore, we ask ourselves the following question: How does the development of a mo-
bile application with augmented reality promote the use of virtual tourism for the archaeological zone
of Caral, Peru?
2. State of the Art
2.1. Smart Tourism
Tourism has been experiencing continuous growth over the years due to new technologies and meth-
ods to provide services [15]. This is how the concept of smart tourism appears, which has been taking
on greater relevance due to the need for new opportunities to innovate in the tourism service. With this
in mind, we observe that the use of smart devices in everyday life is much more common, which makes
it possible to explore ideas such as the design of smart cities or smart tourist destinations [16]. In this
way, smart tourist destinations are designed to have a total approach to the business, thus allowing it to
be sustainable in the long term to achieve observing the results [17]. For this, it is necessary to under-
stand the elements that surround the concept of a smart tourist destination and that allow the project to
be integrated in all its aspects [10].
2.2. Turismo Virtual
Due to the negative impact that COVID-19 had on the tourism sector, an idea was developed that
allows the tourism sector to be maintained through virtual technologies [18]. Through technologies that
allow a virtual immersion of the user, virtual tourism is developed that will allow tourists to be part of
an experience different from that obtained in traditional tourism creating interest in it. According to
studies, they have obtained positive sensations from tourists for the use of virtual tourism as a response
to a crisis situation or difficulty in accessing traditional tourism. Likewise, a design of a smart tourism
has been sought by applying a virtual tourism in order to obtain an immersive experience for tourists
[21]. Thus, with this concept, different ideas have been developed in order to respond to a crisis that
prevents them from continuing to carry out their traditional activities and moving to a virtual medium.
The tourism sector had not foreseen before an option other than traditional tourism until the pandemic
that led to virtual tours to maintain the tourism sector as a sustainable business [22]. However, it is
necessary to emphasize that virtual tourism will not replace traditional tourism, but will complement
the tourist experience for the services pro-vided by tourism [23].
2.3. Caral Tourism
Tourism in Caral has a great variety of ceramics and instruments that they used for their religious
and musical ceremonies as well as their pyramidal buildings built with quincha [24]. Caral has had a
constant growth over the years. The annual visits that the archaeological zone received were in contin-
uous growth. According to the analysis of the archaeological site of Caral, there has been a significant
decrease due to the COVID-19 pandemic [25]. Thus, having an economic loss compared to the years
2019 and 2020 of 87% [26].
2.4. Realidad Aumentada en Aplicaciones Móviles
At present, studies related to augmented reality have seen a growth of great potential to be imple-
mented in mobile applications. One of the studies reviewed by Spallone & Palma [13] contemplates a
solution through digital innovation, which collects information for visits to the archaeological sites of
Rome. This research focuses on the use of the mobile application to recognize monuments and display
information about them through 3D modeling of each of them. A similar look is given with the research
of Hincapié et al. [27], which sought an innovative solution that works on the experiences of tourists
and its value as a tourist site of Plaza Cisneros. The use of augmented reality in the mobile application
was based on showing through a map a marked guide of historical places, which attracts the curiosity
of tourists.
3. Research Methodology
The methodological design of the research will follow an experimental design in order to apply
measuring instruments to obtain the results. Likewise, it will be developed with the pre-experimental
type because it will work with a reduced sample.
With this, to measure the use of virtual tourism, we worked with the time indicators of the use of the
application with all the functionalities and the time of use of the augmented reality functionality. To
obtain the results, an observation guide was developed in which the variable of the impulse of smart
tourism was validated. For the first indicator, we looked for groups of users to whom to pre-sent the
proposal to be part of the experiment. For the selection of the sample, it was taken into consideration
that they are users among children, young people or adults of any sex who have made a visit to a tourist
site. A group of 65 people were told to be part of the experiment using the mobile app. Of the total
number of people, 50 users agreed to be part of the experiment. To do this, the Android Package Kit
(APK) developed for research was delivered. Each of these users had a mobile device with Android
operating system through which they would access the application.
For the mobile app, it started with the creation of the mobile app architecture. The software in use
for the construction of the application was considered as well as the permissions that would be required
for its use. (See Fig. 1).
Figure. 1 Mobile App Architecture
The mobile application will consist of 10screens developed in Android Studio with the Java
programming language. These screens will be the welcome screen, login screen, user registration
screen, main menu screen, Caral history screen, history augmented reality screen, Caral pyramids
screen, pyramid description screen, Caral Map screen, the augmented reality screen of the pyramids of
Caral (See Fig. 2).
Figure. 2 Mobile app screens
For the functionality of the augmented reality screen, we work with the type of augmented reality
without markers, so it is necessary to detect a flat surface with the camera of the mobile to show the 3D
object and the information video. For the application we work with a 3D model of the major pyramid
of Caral because it is one of the most attractive points of Caral (See Fig. 3).
Figure. 3 Augmented reality of the Great pyramid of Caral in the mobile application with a reference
image and the 3D model used.
The following augmented reality functionality will show a video about the socio-environmental
system model of Caral's culture. Through the sensors of the cam-era, as in the previous implementation,
a flat surface will be detected on which to load the audiovisual content (See Fig. 4).
Figure. 4 Augmented reality making use of audiovisual content from Caral's socio-environmental
system model.
Finally, based on the research of this new application with augmented reality to be implemented in
Caral would taken 4 months. This time will focus on the 3D modeling of the 6 main pyramids of Caral
and the development of the application. For the costs of the application, a minimum budget of $500 is
foreseen be-tween the resources, the modelling process and the development process.
4. Results and Discussion
For the results related to the participants of the experiment, 50 users interested in carrying out the
experiment were obtained, achieving a total of l 81% interest in this new mobile application (See table
1).
Table 1
Observation guide for the percentage of users who make use of the mobile application
A=Total number of users using the B= Total number of users
=A/B
group application in a group
50 65 81%
As a next point we have the results of the indicators of the time of use of the mo-bile application and
augmented reality. For the result of the first indicator, an average time of use of the application of 8:25
minutes was obtained from a total of 50 users (See table 2). The evaluation was carried out with the
Student T test for a sample with a test value of 0 since there is no previous record of the use of a mobile
application with augmented reality in Caral. A longer time of use of the mobile application is reported
(M=0:08:25, DE=0:02:08) than the normative sample with the characteristics (t (49) = 27.782, p<.001)
(See table 3).
Table 2
Statistics for a sample of the indicator time of use of the mobile application
Error Typ. Of
N Average Deviation typ.
the average
TiempoUsoAplicación 50 0:08:25 0:02:08 0:00:18
Table 3
Student's T-test for a sample of the mobile app usage time indicator
TiempoUso Valor de prueba=0
Aplicación t gl Sig. (bilat- Average dif- 95% confidence in-
eral) ference terval for difference
Inferior Superior
27,782 49 ,000 0:08:25 0:07:49 0:09:02
For the following indicator of the time of use of augmented reality, an average time of 3:36 minutes
was had (See table 4). Student's T-test, as with the first indi-cator, reported a longer time of use of
augmented reality functionality (M=0:03:36, DE=0:01:32) than the normative sample (t (49) =16,510,
p<,001) (See Table 5).
Table 4
Statistics for a sample of the indicator time of use of augmented reality
Error Typ. Of
N Average Deviation typ.
the average
TiempoUsoAplicación 50 0:03:36 0:01:32 0:00:13
Table 5
Student's T-test for a sample of the augmented reality usage time indicator
TiempoUsoAplica- Valor de prueba=0
ción t gl Sig. (bilat- Average dif- 95% confidence in-
eral) ference terval for difference
Inferior Superior
16,510 49 ,000 0:03:36 0:03:10 0:04:02
As a starting point, we have the beginning of a smart tourism through the mobile application with
augmented reality. As Mohanty points out [6], the augmented reality IT tool is innovative and provides
a new experience for the tourist as observed in research through the times of augmented reality use. As
Neiva mentioned [10], for the concept of smart tourism to be fully applied it is necessary to continue
developing the other components such as IT governance, human capital, sustainability and economic
capital. We can reaffirm with research that applying a virtual tourism will be a complement service to
traditional tourism as mentioned by Talafubieke [23].
Para For users who made use of the mobile application, they found this new way of making their
visit to Caral interesting. They consider that it gives them a greater approach to history and that they
can complement what they have learned. On the other hand, some users reflected in their observations
ideas to complement the application when displaying the information or improving the functionality.
5. Conclusions
Finally, through research it has been possible to meet the main objective through the experiment
executed. First, it has been possible to know what has been happening in Caral and how it is possible
to promote the use of virtual tourism through the concept of smart tourism. It has been possible to take
the first step through the implementation of a mobile application with augmented reality so that the
tourist can experience a new way of accessing the information of the site he visits or is interested in
knowing. In addition, the development of the application is fulfilled based on requirements of previous
studies that had the implementation of augmented reality for different market sectors. Through the
results, it was possible to obtain a high degree of interest from users to make use of a mobile application
with augmented reality. For the use of the application there was an average time of 0:08:25 minutes.
While for the use of augmented reality there was an average time of 0:03:26 minutes. It was able to
identify that there is an opportunity with augmented reality technology to provide a virtual tourism ser-
vice and also implement it in the tours of Caral, since it is a new experience for tourists.
Based on the observations obtained from the research, the project can continue in a future
development in order to realize a long-term implementation in collaboration of the archaeological site
of Caral.
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