Smart Tourism in Cities: Exploring Urban Destinations with Audio Augmented Reality

Audio augmented reality (AR) allows for the simultaneous perception of the real environment and a virtual audio overlay. This is especially important in a mobile use context, where users should be continuously aware of their surroundings, such as in the case of urban tourism, when tourists explore foreign cities and their tourist sights. In this work, we investigate the design and implementation of audio AR systems in urban tourism. Our prototype, called AudioNear, is designed to support tourists' exploration of open, urban environments while providing speech-based information about surrounding tourist sights, based on the users' location. At this stage, we present the design concept of AudioNear, its hardware implementation and the first usability feedback. Overall, the study indicated the promising potential of audio AR for providing informative tourist services and engaging experiences.