Development of a User Participatory Mobile App to Promote a Local Tourist Attraction: The Okayama Korakuen Navi App

With the launch of various smart devices, many compatible apps have also been released. Apple, one of the leading tech companies, runs its own app store, and Google also runs an app store offering products tailored to the Android operating system, where people can download a variety of apps for free or for a fee. The widespread consumer embrace of the Web 2.0 environment enables almost anyone to produce and share content, instead of a few privileged people monopolizing or exclusively owning information. Now, consumers of information are able to share their experiences through the Internet anytime and anywhere, and some regular users even suggest improvements to the services available.

The results of this study indicate that a mechanism that allows users to utilize and produce information will play a positive role in revitalizing local tourism. Domestic organizations, including tourism companies, are the parties primarily in charge of the promotion of local tourist attractions, but in general the descriptions of these attractions that they provide have hardly changed over the years. Since the relevant websites always display the same information, there is no reason to visit them regularly.

To overcome the difficulty involved in constantly providing information that reflects new developments, this study suggests a system that allows users to participate in the production of information on local tourist attractions. Based on a literature review, reviews of several tourism related apps, and surveys of visitors to Korakuen in Japan, the Korakuen Navi app, a mobile app designed to promote tourism in the area, was developed.

In order to promote tourism, local organizations participate in various activities such as creating websites, planning events, distributing leaflets, and creating apps. In Japan, there are 363 tourism related apps for IOS and 229 for Android (as of March 2016). However, most have not been widely downloaded. The exceptions are apps with frequent updates that have been developed by large tourism companies. Based on the preliminary survey of this study, it is clear that many people deleted or stopped using apps created by local organizations after downloading them, because they did not receive user feedback, and most of the information that these organizations provided was also available from other sources on the internet or in other media.

This study examined the specific contents, user participation methods, user interfaces (UIs), and frequency of information updates of the top 10 most frequently downloaded apps among the total of 592 Japanese tourism apps. Since the top 10 apps offered by tourism companies all enabled the reservation of hotel rooms and tourism packages, two more apps created by local organizations were also included in the analysis. Specifically, apps detailing the attractions of Kenrokuen in Kanazawa city, one of the top three landscaped gardens in Japan, and Kairakuen in Mito city were examined, in order to analyze how apps created by such local organizations fared, in accordance with the purpose of this study (Fig. 1).

Top 10 tourism apps and local organization apps

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2.1 Contents, UIs, and Information Updates of Apps

The top 10 tourism apps originally enabled the reservation of hotel packages and tourist itineraries, rather than providing information on tourist attractions. Currently, these apps also provide information about nearby tourist attractions by making a search function available. Although they primarily offer tourist information that is also available from other media, updates on any changes in local amenities and circumstances are available immediately. In terms of encouraging user participation, many of the top 10 apps allow recent visitors to review and rate tourist attractions.

In the case of the app for Kenrakuen in Kanazawa, if a user scans a certain location in Kenrakuen with her smart device, a detailed description using the augmented reality (AR) system is displayed on the device screen. In the case of Kairakuen in Mito, tourist information is provided not via its own app but in the tour section of the official Mito city app, which does not allow any user participation such as the writing of comments. Both of these apps are semi-regularly updated by the information provider.

In the case of the user interface (UI) of the Rurubu app, which is the 3rd most frequently downloaded, if a user selects “tourist attractions” for a local area on a list, related sites in that area appear, their order depending on their user rating. Since the app offers the same data as internet sites, it is updated in real time in order to gain an advantage. It also provides more practical and specific information by allowing users to leave reviews. As a result, the rankings of tourist attractions are highly reliable because they are determined by users. However, the writing ability of a user greatly affects the quality of their review, and there is no mechanism that encourages users who have left comments to do so again (Fig. 2).

UI of the Rurubu app

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2.2 Mapping in Terms of the Level of User Participation and the Update Interval

In Fig. 3, an ideal Korakuen app is presented in 2 × 2 matrix form in terms of the user participation level and the information update interval. This study focused on the issues of user participation and rapid feedback in order to develop an app that people will continue to use without losing interest.

Attributes of an ideal app

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3.1 Concept and Form of User Generated Content

User generated content (UGC) designates online digital content created by individuals using computers or smart phones. Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) defined user generated content as content created without the need for professional processes and training. User generated content was born in the Web 2.0 environment. With the spread of Internet technology and the resulting ease of information production and distribution, users have been increasingly able to produce content easily, and this has led to the significant development of user generated content. O’Reilly (2005) defined collective intelligence, an attribute of Web 2.0, as the collective ability that results from the intellectual capacity created through cooperation and competition among many individuals. The forms of user generated content created in the Web 2.0 environment vary because the phrase “user generated” has very broad meaning. The basic elements of UGC include text, photos, videos, and location information, and the degree of their respective uses varies depending on the basic attributes of various platforms such as blogs or SNS hubs.

3.2 Features and Functions of User Generated Content

With the advent of Web 2.0, users of various platforms began to share their thoughts and experiences with others by uploading posts to their blogs or SNSs, which have provided opportunities to learn from others’ experience. In other words, content containing personal experiences and feelings or thoughts are now seen to constitute valuable data. In addition, the creation of user generated content is mostly voluntary. The motivation for content generation is personal and varies according to the circumstances and motives of the users in question. Smadja (2009) categorized the impetus behind information generation in terms of direct motivation, which involves material rewards, and indirect motivation, which involves a sense of accomplishment or satisfaction. Despite this fundamental difference, both forms of motivation promote the sharing of voluntary information. This suggests that information sharing can be induced by situation-specific factors. In the course of being exposed to and consumed by others on various platforms (blogs or SNSs), this content sometimes comes to be regarded as valuable. When content has high value, immediate sharing occurs and the information is widely propagated. In this process, the originator of this information achieves the satisfaction of creating such popular content, because the recognition of content is considered to be coterminous with the recognition of its creator (Goodchild 2007; Smadja 2009).

This study deals with the information generation of users who are focused on tourist attractions. One example of such user generated content is OpenStreetMap, a map service launched by a non-profit organization in the U.K., the OpenStreetMap Foundation. All geographic information in this map service is created by ordinary individuals. It is well-known that, at the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games, it was not Google Maps but OpenStreetMap that provided the best information on the athletic village and its surrounding environment. During the two months of the Olympics, including the preparatory period, there were more than 1.5 million people who posted helpful information about the event online and more than 2,000 cases of information provision and supplementation.

Another example of interesting user generated content is the Love Clean Streets app created in the U.K. However, this app was not created to share tourist information. The Love Clean Streets app sends pictures of environmental problems in towns and cities where people reside directly to responsible agencies, along with location information. This app is so popular that over 820,000 urban problems have been reported in the U.K. since the app’s creation. There is a similar app in Korea, the Life Inconvenience Report app, with which people send pictures and videos of various problems in their everyday lives to relevant organizations in order to encourage them to resolve these issues.

User generated content constitutes a huge information warehouse consisting of information provided by individuals. These people are motivated to gain recognition, and others are motivated to obtain good information, and thus, over time a system that assimilates this flow of useful information is created.

With a total area of 133,000 m², Korakuen in Okayama, one of the top three landscaped gardens in Japan, is three times larger than the Tokyo Dome and welcomed 700,758 visitors in 2015. According to the Okayama Tourism Action Plan devised by Okayama prefecture, approximately 700,000 foreigners visited Okayama in 2012. Korakuen is in all probability the number one tourist attraction among foreign tourists visiting Okayama. It is easy to visit Korakuen because it is not far from the downtown area, Okayama Castle, and other parks. It is also a good year-round place to see many plants and flowers. Through surveys on the awareness and use of Korakuen, it was found that although it was visited by many people from outside Okayama, its footfall mostly consisted of repeated visits by local residents. Many people used the route to Korakuen as a walking trail because it is near the downtown area, and they can also view nearby parks and Okayama Castle while walking. In addition, in these surveys many people said that it is a great pleasure to see the well-maintained plants and flowers in Korakuen. In this study, the qualities of “participation and sharing” were the criteria used to evaluate the Korakuen Navi app, and its continuous use by tourists and local residents were examined. The study also analyzed ease of use, since the age range of visitors was very wide, from teens to people in their 60s or older.

4.1 Design Concept of the Korakuen Navi App

Concept of the App: My Photos of Korakuen’s Flowers and Trees.

The Korakuen Navi app aims to be an optimal system through which users participate and create content. After examining a variety of attributes that encourage user participation, I chose to incorporate into this app a photo-centered information sharing system that allows the high quality transmission of images and convenient user participation. In addition, data updated by users can be shared via the app or other SNS hubs.

Since cameras are pre-installed in smart phones, anyone with a smart phone can upload images with a few taps of the screen. In addition, photos uploaded by other users are displayed in the order of their upload date, so people can see the latest Korakuen images even if they do not upload images themselves. This ubiquity of images has a stronger impact than any text could.

The Korakuen Navi app is usable in five languages—Japanese, English, French, Korean, and Chinese—because these are the languages of most of its users. The main menu on the home screen is vertically arranged in the Japanese version but is horizontal in foreign language versions. This is because it is natural to read vertically from the top right to bottom left in Japan, while it is natural to read horizontally from the left to the right in other countries.

4.2 Designing Workflow for the Korakuen Navi App

The Korakuen Navi app does not require any training in order to use it. New information is always on the home page, and users can easily access it by tapping the screen a few times. The menu consists of four sections: Submitting Photos; Viewing Others’ Photos; Events; and Hot Spots. The upper part of the home page is comprised of a real time slideshow of updated photos, while the lower part is divided into four global menus. Photos can be uploaded by specifying the locations where they were taken, which is accomplished by selecting a specific site in the park on Google Maps. Photos can also be uploaded accompanied by their category, for example plants, flowers, or hot spots. Photos submitted by other users are displayed in thumbnail format, and can be zoomed in on upon selection. Users can return to the home page at any point (Fig. 4).

Task Workflow on the main menu

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4.3 Production of GUI

The Korakuen Navi app can be downloaded for free from the iPhone App Store, the Android Google Play Store, and its own website. It is an app for Okayama Korakuen Park which incorporates a visual element to induce user participation (Fig. 5).

Working model

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From the analysis of user log data dating from the release of the Korakuen Navi app in May 2015 to February 2016, the age of the 3,331 recorded users ranged from the teens to the 60 s, but middle-aged users in particular were heavily represented. Users from all across Japan accessed the app, but the majority, numbering 1,238 users, were living in the central region of Japan where the Okayama prefecture is located. A total of 128 users uploaded 975 photos. Of these users, those living in Okayama uploaded more than half of all photos. These figures indicate that most users of the Korakuen Navi app are local residents. Of the foreign users, 114 were from Taiwan, 81 were from Hong Kong, and 16 were from China (Fig. 6).

Analysis of user log data

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The quality of information contained in user generated content can be improved by increasing the level of user participation. Many media provide similar local tourist information, which is also true for Okayama Korakuen. Although Korakuen boasts different flowers and scents each season, its promotional information is rarely updated, with the exception of news related to local events. In this context, we have proposed an app that makes user participation more enjoyable by letting users take pictures of developments in the park and upload and share them. This provides fresh information to other users and ultimately motivates them to visit the park. It is also important to demonstrate that the app is being well managed by providing news or event updates in good time, which is the app manager’s responsibility.

The study showed that the number of active users who uploaded photos was relatively small relative to the overall number of users. More research is needed to discover the optimal parameters that can ensure the continuous and active use of the Okayama Korauken app.