UNINTELLIGIBILITY OF TOKENS IN VIRTUAL TOURISM

Tourism has been studied in three historical contexts: Pre-modern era, which has had a religious purpose and a narrative genre-based research approach; Modern era, in which tourism becomes an industry, with emphasis on the same role in a survey-based research; and post-modern era, with emphasis on socio-cultural, IT-based contexts and interdisciplinary role of scientific approach. E-travel implies locomotion in cyberspace and its technology has initially been associated with the computer reservations system (CRS) of the airlines industry, but now it is used more inclusively, incorporating the broader tourism sector as well as its subset. While travel technology includes the computer reservations system, it also represents a much broader range of applications, in fact increasingly so. Travel technology includes virtual tourism in the form of virtual tour applications of Information Technology (IT), or Information and Communications Technology (ICT), in travel, tourism and hospitality industry. E-tourism, as an interdisciplinary field of study incorporating management, IT/ICT, sociolinguistics… has recently been used as a vehicle to take tourists to far distance places and to provide them a chance to enjoy visiting historical sites via cybernetic links, descriptive statements or panoramic virtual photos. The present study has shed some light on the efficacy of such virtual tourism in conveying culture-specific elements, labelled tokens. To that end, a website- Maryam virtual tourism- has been designed to introduce the aforementioned aspects of Shiraz, Iran, in the site with all the possible wares used to that end. A survey was performed on certain candidates, basically specialists in the field and outstanding tourists, familiar with cultural dynamics of Shiraz. They have been identified and put into the databases, after being consulted. The technique has been on line questionnaire as well as far distances text-based interviews. Data elicitation has taken the researcher a six-month time. Results are statistically significant enough to prove the hypothesis that tokens cannot be simply rendered via the present cybernetic techniques interactively in a personalized web designs, software and web-based instrumental effects such as 3D scenes, or simulation platforms like WebGIS. This paper points to the fact that there is no mature platform for introducing cultural token elements via virtual tour system, at present. Therefore, it is necessary to combine the application of cyber glasses, a workable definition of ontologism in semantic web designs & WebGIS with interdisciplinary tokens-familiar technology to develop a specific virtual simulation platform for tourism with an aim of making cultural token elements intelligible.