MOBILE LOCATION-BASED APPLICATION AS TOOL TO EASE TOURIST TO LEARN AND EXPLORE HERITAGE SITES

Abstract

Cultural heritage is an expression of the ways of living originated by a populace and inherited from one generation to another generation such as Angkor Watt at Cambodia, Palace and Park of Versailles at France and Imperial Palaces of the Ming and Qing Dynasties in China which attracted a lot of tourists to visit each year. In addition, the shift in tourism from relaxation to self-discovery is reflected in the tourism industry and cultural heritage tourism is one of the fastest growing specialty markets in the industry today. The current research aims to show an application that is working on smartphones that can be used for exploration in heritage sites and at the same time is able to develop interaction between user and cultural heritage. A virtual guide application that is Mobile Adaptive Tour of Heritage Sites (MATHS) was developed on iPhone platform to ease the tourists to visit, learn, and explore the tangible (refer to heritage sites) and intangible (refer to festive events and social practices) cultural heritage by integrating the technologies like Global Positioning System (GPS), Geographic Information System (GIS), client-server technology and shortest path algorithm. With these technologies, the administrator can insert or edit the information of cultural heritage easily through the admin interface. Therefore, the content inside MATHS is dynamic and keeps updated. In addition, MATHS also integrated with two modules that are 1) SOS (panic button) to provide emergency support such as clinic and police station to the tourist when the tourists need helps in an emergency and 2) public transportation locator where it helps the tourist to find public transport. In the current research, the field of investigation refers to Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia typically at the core zone. With this application, the user can gain more valuable knowledge such as the content of tangible and intangible of the cultural heritage at Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia.