Dr Elisa Mameli

Phygital experiences are becoming prominent in tourism, yet their impact on visitor engagement, particularly in relation to multisensory stimulation, remains underexplored. Grounded in dual-process and optimum stimulation level theories, this study aims to understand how hedonic and functional aspects of phygital experiences influence visitor engagement, satisfaction, and visit intentions and assesses how varying combinations of sensory stimuli moderate these relationships. Data was collected through scenario-based experiments with 413 participants, each exposed to one of six videos representing distinct levels of sensory richness. SEM-based results indicated that both emotional and technological dimensions significantly enhance visitor engagement, which positively influences satisfaction and intention. Multi-group analysis revealed that the strengths of these relationships vary according to the degree of sensory stimulation. Specifying sensory synergy as the coordinated, congruence-based integration of modalities, the study advances dual-process and optimum stimulation level theories in phygital tourism and offers practical guidelines for designing sensory-balanced, human-centered experiences.

Many studies show the possibilities and benefits of combining physical and digital information through augmented paper. Furthermore, the rise of Augmented Reality hardware and software for annotating the physical world with information is becoming more commonplace as a new computing paradigm. But so far, this has not been commercially applied to paper in a way that publishers can control. In fact, there is currently no standard way for book publishers to augment their printed products with digital media, short of using QR codes or creating custom AR apps. In this paper we outline a new publishing ecosystem for the creation and consumption of augmented books, and report the lab and field evaluation of a first commercial travel guide to use this. This is based simply on the use of the standard EPUB3 format for interactive e-books that forms the basis of a new 'a-book' file format and app.