Virtual Reality: Towards Preserving Alexandria Heritage by Raising the Awareness of the Locals

The Historic City, Its Transmission and Perception via Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality and the Use of the Past as a Resource for the Present: A New Era for Urban Cultural Heritage and Tourism?

“…Other authors see these technologies not only as a means for creating new products [42][43][44][45][46] and tourist destinations [47], but also for the promotion and dissemination of tourism products at different territorial scales or for the territorial management of the destination [48]. From the point of view of final users (tourists), these technologies would serve those who are preparing for a visit-favoring, for example, decision-making around which destination to choose [3]-as well as those who have already visited the destination [44]; but also those who cannot visit, being unable to "overcome the space, time and location restrictions that might occur at the physical site" [13] (p. 104). In conclusion, the technologies can generally allow for "enriching the tourist experience, adding information to the real environment merged and over the device display" [49] (p. 122).…”

“…In a still more general sense, for tourists as well as for locals who uphold the urban cultural heritage, these types of technologies can strengthen the identification of a society with its own territory, increasing the urban user's awareness of the surrounding cultural heritage [13,50,51]. As a result, VR and AR can allow the city (or the wider territory) to assume the role of an "open museum" [35] (p. 66), and new technologies within the broad context of "smart" city or region "can be used increasingly for touristic and cultural purposes" [52].…”

“…The ability of AR and VR to offer deeper experience and knowledge to a visitor is generally agreed upon by experts, and many authors have emphasized how these technologies enhance the experience of heritage [13,15,41,42] "promoting the sense of belonging to the site" [13] (p. 104) and, consequently, favoring both conservation and enjoyment of the heritage site. Garau and Ilardi [59], for example, underline the immediacy of these technologies, and that they favor cumulative knowledge.…”

“…The socio-cultural construction of memory and heritage is not necessarily democratized by the use of VR and AR, but may remain confined to only people with greater social, economic, and symbolic power. In this sense, the issue of the cost for users is one of the most frequently cited negative aspects [13,44,46,51]. Even so, some authors argue that such costs can be mitigated by the economic benefits they generate [44], and that portability and ease of use potentially opens the enjoyment of heritage to new users [51,54].…”

“…This at a time when cultural tourism is changing the focus of "informative enrichment of cultural products to the experience of cultural heritage" [11] (p. 70). In this context of social and cultural change in tourism consumption, the aspect highlighted by most authors is the possibility of creating richer and more immersive content that increases consumer satisfaction [12] by enhancing the tourist experience [1,11,[13][14][15][16].…”