DISABLED-FRIENDLY MOBILE SERVICES IN THE CONTEXT OF SMART TOURISM: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR TURKEY 4.0

A certain number of the world population is faced with difficulties in accessing tourism services due to the various handicaps they have. However, the latest technological developments based on Industry 4.0 such as the Internet of Things, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, beacon, near field communication, global positioning systems, and mobile applications can now be used to remove these handicaps for disabled people. In this context, the tourism industry has started to use Industry 4.0 technologies for the sector in order to become ‘smart’. Therefore, in the literature recently, some researches and application proposals have been developed so that the tourism sector can adapt to the latest technologies. However, there is a paucity of research to be done on how these latest technologies, practices and developments should be applied in the tourism sector for disabled people and how they can be integrated with tourism sector. The main objective of the research is to review disabled-friendly mobile services in the context of smart tourism and to propose recommendations for Turkey tourism sector to be disabled-friendly with Industry 4.0 developments. In the study, smart tourism destination literature has been examined and tourism applications developed with the latest technologies emerged through the Fourth Industrial Revolution has been reviewed in the context of being disabled-friendly. Finally, some proposals were given about how Turkey tourism sector can benefit from Industry 4.0 technologies and development to be disabled-friendly