Modern technology is becoming a necessity of many destinations to stay competitive and attractive to the tourist. A new form of technology that is being used increasingly is Virtual and Augmented Reality (AR). The aim of this paper is to display the development of a mobile AR tourism application in urban heritage called PazinAR. Although Augmented Reality has passed the initial hype stage, the technology is just on the verge of being implemented in the tourism industry. This paper describes preparation, design, implementation and execution of prototype touristic application based on Augmented Reality (AR) technology. The application was made using Unity software and AR SDK Vuforia and exported as Android applications. Created application enables overlapping old photos with current view. Furthermore, several significant implications for AR Tourism research and practice are revealed.

Environmental noise is a major environmental concern in metropolitan cities. The rapid social and economic growth in the 20th century is not always accompanied by adequate land planning and environmental management measures. As a consequence of rapid urbanization processes, cities are facing an increase in noise pollution. Noise is being recognized as a serious environmental problem and one which must be accounted for in a sustained development policy designed to improve the quality of life for citizens. Therefore, the monitoring of noise is a crucial aspect of urban planning to allow urban planners to create harmonious and livable environments for communities worldwide. This research aims at assessing the noise levels and associated sources of noise in downtown areas through the involvement of crowdsourcing techniques. The incorporation of noise mapping and increased public awareness are achieved by a framework that enables a comparative scheme between two cities: Alexandria, Egypt and Zagreb, Croatia. The methodology depends on combining crowdsourcing techniques using mobile applications and geographic information system (GIS) tools to detect and analyze noise. Finally, this research provides a comparison between the two cities using the adopted methodology and introduces recommendations to enhance urban planning decisions.

This research aims to assess available spatial open data related to access to hospitals in the three largest Croatian cities (Zagreb, Split, Rijeka), with a future aim to create digital services as an ecosystem that will be used in everyday situations, as part of the concept of “digital society”. Data analysis is performed for the following datasets: hospitals, hospital specialization, public transport (tram, bus), bike routes, car routes, parking and parking for people with disabilities. The future aim is to create a new mobile, multilingual and voice-based application that would enable quick access to information on hospital access, relying on the principles of the open data ecosystem, which would improve over time. There are four specific aims: (1) to identify and analyze portals and open datasets of the selected categories for the three largest Croatian cities; (2) to analyze existing open data assessment frameworks and detect gaps; (3) to create a conceptual open data assessment framework as an open data ecosystem that integrates new end-user perspectives; and (4) to analyze existing open datasets for the three largest cities in Croatia, based on supply and demand by researcher/developer categories, using the newly developed framework. The results show that existing open datasets related to hospital access in the three largest Croatian cities are scattered across different portals. Analyzed frameworks existing on the supply side of open data are more focused on the status of the components, lacking evaluation scales and not including end-user-driven aspects, which would be crucial for the open data ecosystem. As a result, the new “Hospital Access Framework” is created as a conceptual ecosystem, including five categories: supply, demand by researcher/developer, demand by end-user, legal aspect and impact. Analysis of existing open data for the three Croatian cities is performed for two categories (supply and demand by researcher/developer), for which KPIs, indicators and evaluation scales are developed. The other three categories are not analyzed, since the application cannot be developed from existing data, which are insufficient for the creation of a smart application. Results show that existing open data related to hospital access are incomplete or do not exist at all (hospital specialization, parking for people with disabilities, data on multilingualism and voice enabling). Average scores of the supply category are higher than those for demand by researcher/developer, although they are below the average grade, showing a lack of available data that could be used for further development. The new conceptual “Hospital Access Framework” open data ecosystem would benefit from end-user interaction, therefore, improving over time with end-users through interaction.

This study examines the understanding of tourist maps in Croatian national parks, emphasizing a user-centered approach to enhancing cartographic design, the tourist experience, and map readability. Although tourist maps are widely used, there is limited research evaluating these cartographic products, particularly in terms of their comprehensibility and effectiveness in communicating spatial information. To address this gap, we examined existing cartographic materials published by Croatian national park authorities in line with recognized cartographic standards. An online questionnaire, completed by 132 participants of varying ages and educational backgrounds, was used to evaluate the understanding of Point of Interest (POI) pictograms. The results obtained within both gap analysis and needs assessment underscore the need for user-centered improvements in cartographic communication and provide a foundation for the development of more effective map designs tailored to user needs.