ENHANCING TOURIST EXPERIENCE AND ENGAGEMENT THROUGH AI-DRIVEN REAL-TIME OBJECT DETECTION AND INTERACTIVE MOBILE APPLICATION

Artificial intelligence has the potential to revolutionize the tourism industry, particularly by enhancing tourist experiences and providing valuable insights into tourist behavior. Our research identified a significant opportunity to enhance tourist satisfaction and engagement and enable advanced visitor analytics through an AI-powered real-time object detection system. In this study, we propose an AI-driven mobile application to address the gap in the digital infrastructure in Serbia by facilitating the real-time detection of tourist points of interest (PoI), allowing users to upload images instead of performing text searches. The uploaded images are analyzed by an AI system using the YOLO model trained on a customized dataset created specifically for this purpose. When a PoI is recognized, relevant information is displayed on the user’s mobile phone in their preferred language, using advanced AI translation tools. This paper outlines how such a system not only enhances the overall tourist experience by delivering instant and pertinent information, but also provides tourism organizations with advanced analytics on visitor behavior, improved customer interaction capabilities, and enhanced promotional opportunities for lesser-known attractions and local businesses. Moreover, this study explores how the proposed application aligns directly with the tourism development strategy of Serbia and the UNDP recommendations, aiming to enhance digital infrastructure and support sustainable tourism initiatives across the country.