The "Città ai bambini" project (CAB)
CITTÀ AI BAMBINI. Project co-financed under Tuscany POR FESR 2014-2020"
The "Città ai bambini" (CAB) project is co-fianced under Tuscany POR FESR 2014-2020 (D.D. N. 3389 of the 30/07/2014). The aim of this project is to realize a technological application for handheld devices, such as tablets or smartphones, that allows children to have an active position in the tourist experience. The main purpose of the CAB project is to set up a new generation of tourist service designed and developed starting from children's touristic needs and psycho-cognitive characteristics.
Different partners are working together to put in practice this project:
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F2 Ltd (deals with computer engineering);
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Mandragora Ltd (deals with editorial contents);
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Net Studio Ltd (deals with computer engineering);
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Florence University Department of Educational Research and Psychology, with the collaboration of professors: Andrea Smorti, Monica Toselli, Fulvio Tassi, Enrica Ciucci e Luisa Puddu.
With the purpose to shed light on the children's touristic experience, the research group of Narrative Research and Developmental Processes (Unità di Ricerche Narrative e Processi di Sviluppo), conducted focused studies with children, teacher and experts of the tourism field, aimed to explore children's desires, user's needs, autobiographical experiences and cognitive-linguistic requirement of children in the tourist context. In particular the following themes have been taken into account:
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State of the art connected with the children's use of mobile devices in the touristic context and the concept of gamification connected to tourist experience;
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Media addressed to childhood, with specific reference to animated cartoons, TV shows, books and internet blogs concerning the travel theme;
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The point of view from the experts in the tourism field, analyzed trough a semi-structured interview, on the main issues about the current proposal for children in the tourism field;
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The children point of view. We explored children outside school interest, desires, imagination and fruitive needs connected to the exploration of an unknown city.
Results show that children imagine the touristic visit as an adventure to be lived with them parents and characterize by complication, resolutions, the presence of helper or co-protagonist, magic and recreational moments. Furthermore when children describe the touristic trip to a city, the naturalistic aspects of the landscape are always mentioned, as well as the importance to share the experience with friends or parents. Children also seem to be particular focused and to remember long term the sensorial aspect of the touristic experience. In conclusion we can assert that children remember and imagine the touristic trip as an explorative and recreational experience.
