What is Amharc?

Amharc is an AR feature for tourists that aim to provide an Immersive Shopping Experience at renowned Independent Local businesses

Executive Summary

With the advances in smartphone technology, augmented reality has experienced a breakthrough over the past few years. It has emerged as a useful tool for business and marketing, allowing them to alter the way customers perceive their surroundings. This has been particularly beneficial for those operating in the travel & Tourism industry, as they are often selling experiences or physical environments, which AR can enhance.

Unlike other businesses, travel tends to be heavily researched, as customers require a lot of information before they arrive. In addition, this need for information does not stop when the customer arrives. Augmented reality can serve to ensure much of this information is available to them, 24/7, at times it is most relevant.

More than 40% of Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) report customer growth and attribute some of this to the use of digital tools Customer growth is a key driver of business performance. In fact, 80% of businesses report that the acquisition of new customers contributed to their revenue growth in the last year. In this context, more than 40% of all SMBs have reported some customer growth in the last year and attributed some of this growth to the use of digital tools; in particular, having their own website, and using social media and Customer Relationship Management tools. On average, these SMBs attributed over 35% of their customer growth to their use of digital tools. Further analysis finds that SMBs with advanced digital engagement are three times more likely to have experienced customer growth, which is on average twice as high Tools that SMBs report to have helped them gain new customers in the last year:

Company's website
50% Social Media & Search Engine
34% Mobile Application

The main purpose of any tourist trip is to discover new destinations and sights. And it can be quite challenging to travel through unfamiliar places. Maps with AR or AR apps for navigation make this much easier.

Offline to online is a thing of the past. The new way is online to Offline, and many companies have significantly invested in technologies that can enable this transformation. AR technology will only make this experience better. Especially for Retail businesses.

The idea of being somewhere unknown, especially if you’re on your own, may cause some anxiety. But one trick to staying afloat amidst the uneasiness is to toss off the tourist cap and enjoy your newest excursion as if you’ve lived there your whole life. Cities differ in their cuisine, landmarks and language.

Problem Statement

Tourists looking for a truly unique travel experience and want to shop and eat like a local in the city they are travelling in have to refer to multiple blogs, websites and applications to find the Local Independent Shops, eateries, crafts etc.

Solution

Creating a location-based discovery AR platform that can be integrated with Applications that Tourists use to explore places which can be leveraged and become a one-stop solution for local shopping experience for tourists.

Target Group

Primary Target Group: Tourists exploring the city

Secondary Target Group: Anyone who wants to have an immersive local shopping experience

Key Stakeholders and Partners

- Local business owners
- Tourists
- Websites and applications which provide news, information and events.
- Social Media applications
- Department of Tourism

Research Approach

Our research process mainly consists of online research using various research papers, publishers web articles and blogs.

Our initial research included the use of AR in different sectors. We narrowed down the tourism sector since we felt that there is more scope to explore the field and post-pandemic was the right time since people will be very cautious about movement and getting back to normal means a lot of change in the world of travel and tourism.

Through our research, we got to know that there is a lot of being developed in the aviation sector and Hospitality industry with AR and VR from check-in to ticketing.
When it comes to shopping, Large scale Retail outlets have experimented with Augmented reality but there was none for the local business which are they are left out in the emerging technology market This was mainly due to the cost that implies to build/maintain and lack of awareness of the technology. On the other side, our research also showed the rise in the revenue and visibility of small business when they actively use and engage in current technology to reach out to their customers.

Considering the restrictions due to Covid-19 situation we interacted only with 3 of the local business owners to know their point of view about the usage of current technology to increase their business like listing their business on social Media Platforms, Search Engines, E-commerce platforms, etc and to understand if they were aware of AR/VR and its usage in the real world.

All of them pointed out that technology can boost revenue, but they also mentioned that it’s resource-intensive and becomes an expensive affair which may not bring in customer foot-fall to the store directly. So, the problem was about figuring out the technology.

With respect to AR/VR, they were all aware and experienced the technology in one form or another, but they were not really sure about how it can and have been used in a real-world business scenario.

To put it in brief what they all were trying to communicate is that the reach via technology is great but the reach converting to revenue is doubtful.

We interviewed Niamh and Bronagh from Travel Media to pitch our idea and get feedback for the same and to know more about the tourism industry and its transition because of technology. We got positive feedback and suggestions for the project and we have considered to include the suggestion moving forward.

Our online research hypothesis was confirmed that there are currently no AR platforms available to promote local business to Tourists.