Location-Based Mobile Augmented Reality Application for Tourism

New Zealand is a popular tourist destination for global tourists, where several cities in New Zealand attract a multitude of tourists annually. This research aims to exploit mobile technologies, including mobile augmented reality (MAR) and location-based service to implement a mobile tourist guide known as InvercARgill, to help promote tourism in Invercargill. The research focuses on the design and implementation of InvercARgill, where the functionality and usability are prioritised. Besides, the client-server architecture of InvercARgill, along with various SDKs and APIs exploited for the implementation are discussed in this paper. Lastly, results of the research reveal that InvercARgill could enhance the tourist's travel experience in Invercargill by distributing tourist information of various attractions through MAR and location-based service on the smartphone, as well as reducing the travel time to various attractions in Invercargill.