Research on Tourist Experience of Jinan Tourism APP through Service Design Methods

Abstract

The role of travel apps in tourism is becoming increasingly important with the continuous digitalization of the tourism industry. This research is needed to promote the development of the tourism industry in Jinan by enhancing the travel experiences of tourists when using tourism apps, so the current state of declining tourism in Jinan can be addressed. The aim of this study is to explore and define the problems of insufficient tourist experience using Jinan tourism apps and to suggest service solutions to these issues. Therefore, the research method primarily chooses several service design methods, including focus group discussion (FGD), persona, tourist journey map, service blueprint and service prototyping to identify, define and solve the problem. The content of this study is as follows: firstly, a focus group discussion (FGD) was used to conduct structured interviews and discussions with 18 target tourists and the results were then visualized through the use of a persona and a tourism journey map. Three major pain points were identified from the research findings: numerous apps are cumbersome to use, multiple apps deliver erroneous information, and multiple apps provide insufficient services. To address these pain points, this research suggests the creation of a Jinan Tourism app that is authoritative, comprehensive and tourist-oriented. The tourist perspective and multi-stakeholder co-creation are then used to establish the service blueprint for the Jinan Tourism app using three modules: tourist actions, onstage services, and backstage support team, presented in the following order: before tourism, during tourism, and after tourism. In addition, as a result of this research, a prototype of several pages was created based on the service blueprint and tested on a small scale. This study establishes the framework for the future design of the Jinan Tourism app, with the ultimate goal of revitalizing tourism in Jinan.