Facilitators and hinderers for designing augmented reality for ecotourism SME's experiences: A service Design approach

Designing Augmented Reality (AR) throughout service experiences remains under studied in several industries, despite the fact of growing consumer interest and use through different platforms and applications globally. Consequently, there is growing interest in understanding the what, the why and the how for designing AR applications in practice to boost ecotourism experiences, with the purpose of enhancing customer value creation and organizations differentiation. Consequently, the authors conducted an eleven-month practical theoretical study in 10 ecotourism SMEs purposefully recruited in Latin America, adopting service design as a main research framework. Using interviews, contextual analyses, buyer personas, observation, storytelling creation sessions, prototyping sessions and accompaniment sessions as research methods, researchers studied, (1) what were the key facilitators and hinderers for designing AR in practice at the SMEs ecotourism context following a service design lens and, (2) how the inherent principles of service design influence ecotourism SME's for the strategically adoption of AR in their service experiences. The study suggests key elements that can facilitate or hinder designing AR at ecotourism SME's Experiences in practice. Furthermore, the authors suggest a practical protocol for designing AR for ecotourism SMEs from the lens of service design (SD), User Experience (UX), and Augmented Reality (AR). Finally, the study also contributes to shade light on the marketing role and potential adoption of Augmented Reality (AR) in practice in SME's through a service design lens.