Case 3: Middle East Riyadh Season AR Immersion Tour

As an important part of Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia has been promoting the development of the cultural and tourism industry in recent years by organizing thematic seasons in key tourism cities to showcase its natural and cultural attractions to tourists around the world. The Riyadh Season is the largest cultural and entertainment event in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, and is an important part of Saudi Arabia's efforts to develop the digital tourism industry and achieve Vision 2030. With 900,000 square meters of event space divided into 14 themes and nearly 7,500 events, Riyadh Season is a feast of music, art, culture and dining. According to the General Entertainment Authority (GEA), the Riyadh Season has seen more than 11 million visitors, 1.6 million of whom are from overseas.

In order to continuously attract more visitors, create greater popularity and fervor globally, and promote the sustainable development of the cultural and tourism industry, SenseTime and Sela, a Saudi cultural and tourism event management company, have partnered to empower Riyadh Season events based on SenseMARS' AI and MR technologies to create a grand immersive cultural and entertainment experience for local residents and global visitors in five major event areas: Riyadh Boulevard, Combat Field, Winter Wonderland, Safari and Riyadh Front. The current main scenarios of the project landing include four functional modules of AR navigation, AR theme routes, AR attractions and AR marketing.

AR navigation. In view of the large scope of the scenic spot and the characteristics of scattered attractions, SenseTime uses AI and MR technology to build AR real-world navigation services in the park, covering various park services, including play attractions, prayer rooms, medical service points and public toilets. When opening the mobile app, visitors can get high-precision AR route guidance at any time, find the attractions and facilities quickly and easily, and easily get the electronic guide introduction, making the tour more convenient and interesting. At the same time, the combination of visual perception technology for real-time analysis of the number of people in line at attractions and AR navigation makes it easy for visitors to check the queue situation at any time and better arrange their tour itinerary.

Figure: AR navigation in Time Square area

AR attractions. With the support of SenseTime MR technology, the park has set up AR attractions in the two major areas of Time Square, dinosaurs and fountains respectively. Visitors can see a virtual Tyrannosaurus Rex pacing back and forth in the square, looking and roaring through the mobile app; scanning the fountain will show the landscape of the sky ocean world, a "whale" leaping high from the fountain, splashing a wave, giving visitors a very realistic sense of visual impact. The AR attraction will show a view of the ocean world in the sky. Visitors can take photos with these AR attractions and share them on social media to attract more attention to the park.

Figure: AR dinosaur theme and AR Sea World theme

AR marketing. While providing AR navigation for tourists, the park will put AR advertising function along the navigation route, promote the stores around the attractions for tourists, show the preferential activities of stores and recommend discount goods on the AR billboard, so as to channel the marketing of stores in the park, combine AR marketing with traditional marketing, and improve the conversion efficiency of tourists into stores.

Figure: AR advertising and marketing

AR theme route. In the Boulevard area, due to the complex terrain, the park provides AR theme route recommendation for visitors based on AR navigation function, which connects AR attractions and AR marketing points into a tour route, reduces users' action cost, guides users to visit related projects, and combines with AR punch card puzzle game to collect pictures for coupons, which also draws traffic to the park stores.

Based on SenseMARS of SenseTime, the park brings an efficient and convenient touring experience for global visitors through its technology-rich visual presentation and vivid and interesting immersive interactive design, giving visitors the opportunity to experience and embrace Saudi Arabia with a vivid and interesting perspective, adding popularity and topics to the cultural and tourism season activities.