About the project

This EU project aims to apply service design thinking to the tourism sector and particularly to develop tourism-specific research methods, such as mobile ethnography. Based on the prototype of a tourism-specific mobile ethnography application myServiceFellow (www.myServiceFellow.com), the project strives to further develop the application and evaluate its usability in practice through seven pilot projects in various European tourism destinations.

Central research questions:
How can a customer report their experience of a tourism experience as they experience it? In what way, does a mobile self-ethnography tool reflect the experience of interacting with different touch-points along a service journey? Can an app on a mobile phone facilitate understanding of the customer experience of tourism?

Analytical frames:
Customer experience. Interaction Design. Self ethnography. Usability.

Methods:
Practice led research. Usability testing.

Deliverables:

Publication:
Conference papers, book chapters,

R+D:
An android based ‘App’

Dissemination:
A conference on service design in tourism

Funding:
EU, project partners
Euro 440 000

Exhibitions:

Events:

Media coverage:
EU-midler til tjenestedesign og turisme (AHO 22.02.2011)

Project partners:

MCI – Management Center Innsbruck (Austria), Innovation Norway (Norway), Institute for Design, AHO (Norway), Making Waves (Norway), Tourismuszukunft (Germany), University of Linköping (Sweden), Hotel School Den Haag (the Netherlands), Savonia University of applied sciences (Finland) and SKEMA Business School (France).