Abstract

Today’s globalized environment challenges the notion that a monumental institution rooted in a monocultural context can satisfactorily address the needs of local communities. The
Caribbean, as a regional culture wrought by an earlier globalization process which deliberately sought to deculturate its transplanted population, may provide clues to its success as tourism centre at the same time capable of developing/accommodating new museum models to affirm its fragmented identity.

An Emerging Technology Application

During the first 5 years of the 21st century a convergence of trends that include pervasive wireless networking (WiFi hotspots, cellular 3G/GPRS), broad availability of “smart” wireless devices (cell phones or PDAs), and inexpensive, embeddable wireless RFID tags have enabled new interactive personalized museum experiences. Starting in 2005 location based services were introduced to serve a mobile community of users who carry video capable inexpensive PDAs.

 v-MuseLabs Experiments

 v-MuseLabs is a site dedicated to experiments in virtual museum and historical site models. The strategy is to simulate capture tourists for museums by wireless hand held E-TourTM devices that will  support ad-hoc spontaneous self guided tours. 

Experiment to make available virtual services to tourists via wireless smart agents.  Model a mobile tourist experience with ETourTM that shows nearby places where his interest and preferences are featured and preview relevant real time content. 

Assess the chance that location based information push:
● will change tourists museum visitation  patterns
● Increase museum traffic.