Enhancing the tourist experience at Ajanta caves.
Project Title:
Enhancing the Tourist Experience at Ajanta Caves.
Project Subtitle:
Empower the tourist to navigate the place through their own will.
Subject Name:
PC740 Research Proposal
Course Name:
Master of Design (Communication Design)
Author:
Manan Oza
Student ID:
201114010
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Enhancing the tourist experience at Ajanta caves.
Enhancing the Tourist Experience at Ajanta Caves
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Enhancing the tourist experience at Ajanta caves.
Empower the tourist to navigate the place through their own will
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Enhancing the tourist experience at Ajanta caves.
Table of Contents 1. Statement of Problem 2. Research Objective -
Research Hypothesis
-
Research Questions
3. Final Product 4. Background -
History
-
Media survey
5. Literature Review 6. Methodology -
Field site(s)
-
Community
-
Method(s)
-
Data Collection & schedule
7. Personal Rationale 8. References
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Enhancing the tourist experience at Ajanta caves.
Statement of Problem: There has been from my own experiences of visiting the Ajanta caves several times, from experiences of travels and visitors who have been there and recorded their views. It is evident that there are this issue within the site which we can be enhance if we address it by imparting the effective information. With the existing scenario, it seems government strongly controls the movement of tourists at Ajanta. Lack of information adds to the problem- what to see, when to see and where to see are unanswered questions for tourists. The physical topology of the place adds fatigue and unfortunately tourists mostly fail to complete the journey. With no proper information; time as constraint navigation through the place becomes an unresolved problem.
Research Objective: Research Hypothesis: The main objective of the project is to find out how to design information about tourist friendly places in India in such way that they cater to the curiosity of the tourist but at the same time it doesn’t make the tourist lose interest to visit the place. Find ways to empower the tourist to navigate the place through his own will. For that, thorough study of the tourists who visit Ajanta and categorise them on the basis of- who they are, where they come from, what their interest is and what time they are there for. Categorise caves according to what they have to showcase paintings, sculpture and architectures. Thorough study of the physical topography of caves and identify places for pass information. Identifying right channels through which information could be made available to tourist. Few of the caves, due to their bad state are no longer open for tourists and are under timely maintenance. Analyze tourist behaviour, their purpose of visit, expectations and how one could improve their experience to identify the scope of technology in recreating the same tourist experience. Page | 5
Enhancing the tourist experience at Ajanta caves.
Research Questions: o From where tourist gather the information before they visit the place? Analyze information which is not available according to tourist? o What is the pattern in tailor tourism? Find out what are other places nearby Ajanta caves? o What are the models with concern to tourist's movement around the place? o Find out which type of tourist visit the place? What problem they have facing while moving around the place? o What are the models in Information needs of tourist and visitors by category? o Analyze the tourist behaviour at site? Where they came from? How long they will stay at the site? What are their Interest, Age, and Language? What is the purpose of the visit? What are their expectations from place? What time they are there for? o How administrative department interact with tourist? From with channels? o How does that affect to social interaction between tourist and visitor? What is the variety of communication channels employed? o What is the pattern in caves to showcase for the tourist? o What are the tourist trap at the place and how tourists negotiate when them? o How tourists negotiate with uneven geographic topology and terrain? o To identify the scope of technology in recreating the same user experience?
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Enhancing the tourist experience at Ajanta caves.
Final Product: With the help of technology design an interactive tour guide that gives the tourist the privilege to navigate the place. Availability of information through which user could browse through; his interests and plan his own trip. Through the research, what the product would take shape would be justified. For the category of tourists who are not tech-savvy, I also wish to design an audio tour. The tour might contain maps, narratives, animation, and information and audio that would guide one through the place.
Scenario 1: Tourist plan their visit according to his/her time and interest
Scenario 2: Tourist can suggest cave to other tourists. Page | 7
Enhancing the tourist experience at Ajanta caves.
Background: History: Rock-cut caves near Ajanta, possessing perfect specimens of Indian mural paintings were discovered in 1819 by a band of British officers while hunting a tiger. These caves excavated in a semi-circular scarp, includes five chaityas-grihas and some twenty-five viharas or monasteries. They were excavated between the second century BC and seventh century AD and served as sanctuaries for Buddhist monks during the monsoons. The caves of Ajanta are famous for their architectural qualities, graceful elegance and serenity of sculptures, and above all, the world famous paintings that adorn their interiors. The paintings are intensely religious in tone and theme and depict the lives and times of Buddha and Bodhisattvas. They also act as a sort of illuminated history of those times – court scenes, street scenes, and cameos of domestic life as well as animal and bird sanctuaries.
Media Survey: Tourists already get information from website but it is incredible that according to tourist interest and time the information is not available. Not only website provide complete information but also website not provided connectivity timings like train, bus, air, taxi and reshow. Even on incredible India website, they directly provided state government website link for tourists.
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Enhancing the tourist experience at Ajanta caves.
Not even single website can provide the information according to tourist interest and his/her convenient time. Or not any website mentions that what things should tourist pack before visit.
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Enhancing the tourist experience at Ajanta caves.
Literature Review: From the very inception of life, travel and tourism has fascinated man. Every tourist has different motive of their visit. The introduction of technology into caves and exhibitions is a difficult and delicate matter, as the cave is a rather complex entity from the point of view of experience, interaction and exhibition design (Falk & Dierking, 1995). The guiding principle of sustainable tourism development is to minimise the negative impacts of tourism in order to maximise visitor enjoyment and local benefit. Locations naturally organize data with important relations with or connections to other ideas. Location organizations can benefit many projects, but it happens rarely, because designers never do experiments with the ideas available. If oriented properly geographical relations can produce maps and diagrams with better sense of place which is not as easy as writing. E.g. use of atlas or access travel guide. (Nathan shedroff, 1994) In developing the design scenario, we intent to further investigate the cognitive and the interactional nature of the objects in the context of the caves and to reflect on the ways they could be designed as media- connecting the physical locale of the caves and virtual world of information. Interaction Design, which is essentially story-creating and telling, is at once both an ancient art and a new technology. Information design primarily focuses on representation of data and its presentation. The emphasis is on creating compelling experiences through combination of interaction and information design. The emphasis remains on the people for whom you design. Studying them in their own environment and identifying their problems. Through use of technology, how it would contribute to what is called Social Tourism. RedDot Tourism in Sri-Lanka is an apt example that gives tourist the privilege to move around the places that they want. After gathering information about your interests the
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Enhancing the tourist experience at Ajanta caves.
system is intelligent enough that it gives you a planed schedule for your trip. A classic example of so called the tailor tourism.
Source: http://www.reddottours.com/itrip/ Even as the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to tourists due to their deteriorating condition, the state government has started creating a replica of these caves with the aid of foreign technologies.
Source: http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_4-ajanta-caves-to-shut-doors-totourists_1719297
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Enhancing the tourist experience at Ajanta caves.
Methodology: Field site(s): The main site of my research is the Ajanta caves at Aurangabad. And being a resident of Jalgaon travelling to Ajanta is only an hour’s drive for me. AJANTA is world's greatest historical monument recognised by UNESCO located just 55kms from Jalgaon city and 105kms from Aurangabad City of Maharashtra, India. And my research will try to connect this place to individual tourist and tourist groups.
Community: Being a UNESCO world heritage site, people from all around the globe visit this place. That includes a majority of local tourists of different cultures and sizeable amount of foreign tourists whom I’ll interact, observe and study. Interrogate with the guides around the place and the existing people in the committee who regulates the movement at the tourist site.
Method (s): Firstly, observe the caves and surroundings and finding the scope of improvement to create interests. Secondly, interview the local and foreign tourists to know what they feel about the place. A set of questionnaires would be prepared to record the observations of the tourists at the site. This would account to successful collection of qualitative data. This would strongly help to figure out the flaws with the existing system and where is room for change. The idea is to audio tape tourist’s response for their experience however conversations would also be secretly recorded when needed. The emphasis still remains to interrogate with the tourist; as if you are also one amongst him so that would ease and open up the discussion. As people across the globe come to visit the place, idea is to try n gather responses of people of different categories and age group. In order to identify specific locations to pass information photographs of appropriate points would be taken to study. The field data accumulated through interviews (audio or video), surveys and quantitative research would be archived in the computer. Page | 12
Enhancing the tourist experience at Ajanta caves.
These responses would cater to the building of the final product.
Data Collection & schedule: I have done field visits, categorised caves and tourist’s interests. Further, I will identify the exact locations to pass information through digital channels of communication. I need to justify the suitability of the product at the site. That again goes through reverse of the process from where the problem came. Before I deploy the final product, I will conduct regular field visits at Ajanta to check my product stands apt.
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Enhancing the tourist experience at Ajanta caves.
Personal Rationale: Through my personal experience, when I landed at Ajanta the place seemed to be a mystery for me. It takes more than 5 hours to complete the journey. We did not know what cave had what to show. After a certain point of time it gets redundant and the physical fatigue starts playing as a hindrance. When you are along with a group they have different interests and quite of them are either tired or lose the interest. The idea of taking this project was to give tourists an insight what the place is about and allow him to see the places that he wants. Few of the caves are regularly closed for the restoration work. Moreover the guides have the same old recitation and no in-depth knowledge. The idea is to design for the people to enhance their experience through use of technology.
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Enhancing the tourist experience at Ajanta caves.
References: Books: World heritage series Ajanta: Debala Mitra (2000) Elements of User Experience: Jesse James Garrett. (2004) Enhancing visitor curiosity: Liam J. Bannon. (2001) Observing the user experience: mike kuniavsky (2003)
Articles: A unified field theory of design: Nathan shedroff http://www.nathan.com/thoughts/unified/ New technologies for underserved communities: Ravi Poovaiah http://www.idc.iitb.ac.in/ravi/papers-writings.html Design Science in Information Systems Research http://www.jstor.org/stable/25148625 The Eames Report April 1958 http://www.jstor.org/stable/1511408 Is there an Indian Way of Thinking? http://cis.sagepub.com Websites: www.ajantacaves.com www.maharashtratourism.gov.in http://www.mid-day.com/news/2012/jun/040612-Hello-welcome-to-Ajantacaves.htm http://www.journeymart.com/travel-news/maharashtra-tourism-to-constructidentical-prototypes-of-ajanta-caves.aspx http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.in/2012/07/four-ajanta-caves-to-shutdoors-to.html#.UDJ-6d3iZcQ http://www.reddottourism.com Page | 15