Augmented Reality (AR) in Urban Heritage Tourism

New technology has been seen as a way for many businesses in the tourism industry to stay competitive and enhance their marketing campaign in various ways. AR has evolved as the buzzword of modern information technology and is gaining increasing attention in the media as well as through a variety of use cases. This trend is highly fostered across mobile applications as well as the hype of wearable computing triggered by Google’s Glass project to be launched in 2014. However, although research on AR has been conducted in various fields including the Urban Tourism industry, the majority of studies focus on technical aspects of AR, while others are tailored to specific applications. Therefore, this paper aims to examine the current implementation of AR in the Urban Tourism context and identifies areas of research and development that is required to guide the early stages of AR implementation in a purposeful way to enhance the tourist experience. The paper provides an overview of AR and examines the impacts AR has made on the economy. Hence, AR applications in Urban Tourism are identified and benefits of AR are discussed.