Interdisciplinary course: ‘The Use of Mobile Communication Technologies in Destination Marketing’

In the centre of Worms lies the oldest surviving Jewish cemetery in Europe, the ‘Heiliger Sand’ cemetery. Students at Worms University of Applied Sciences, in collaboration with the Faculties of Computer Science and Tourism/Transport, have developed a mobile app for this significant historical cultural monument. Unlike conventional information services, the app weaves factual knowledge into an emotional narrative through storytelling, bringing the history to life for users.

Working in two interdisciplinary teams, the project participants developed the app from concept to implementation within a single semester. For the students in the Faculty of Tourism and Transport, the main task lay in the conceptual development of the app, including target audience analysis, content research and the creation of stories to convey information narratively. The technical design, visual design and programming were primarily carried out by students from the Faculty of Computer Science.

The concept developed for the use of mobile communication technologies in destination marketing can also be applied to other areas, such as cultural and industrial heritage sites, museums, urban and cultural tourism, and modern experiential environments for brand promotion.

Project team: Lisa Laubscher, Aline Schröder, Lukas Bisdorf, Dominik Corell, Sascha Roth, Laura Stock, Imke Augustyniak, Michael Bulling, Jennifer Dell, Steffen Hummel, Christopher May, Mona Neufang.

This interdisciplinary course later gave rise to the larger IZEd project, the SchUM Storytelling App for Speyer, Worms and Mainz (2019–2022).

As part of the university’s CeBIT presentation, a press release entitled ‘CeBIT as added value for students’ was published.