IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/infott/v27y2025i4d10.1007_s40558-025-00328-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How Heidi helps: designing for inspiration in digital travel assistants

Author

Listed:
  • Jan Friedli

    (University of Zurich)

  • Mateusz Dolata

    (University of Zurich
    Zeppelin University)

  • Gerhard Schwabe

    (University of Zurich)

Abstract

The emerging trend of inspirational Digital Travel Assistants (DTAs) is rapidly gaining prominence in the tourism industry yet remains underexplored in academic literature. This paper examines how inspirational DTAs can be designed to facilitate travel inspiration through autonomous and efficient co-creation at scale. Grounded in the literature on co-creation within the domain of travel planning (Schmidt-Rauch and Schwabe 2014) and the framework of customer inspiration (Thrash and Elliot 2003), this study employs a design science research (DSR) methodology to explore how to offer personalized travel inspiration through co-creation, catering to the evolving needs of modern travellers. We present an artefact of an inspirational DTA, named Heidi, as one example of how to facilitate this. Heidi was developed by Swiss International Airlines (part of the Lufthansa Group) in collaboration with Google. The evaluation was conducted via semi-structured interviews with three members of the HEIDI initiative and eleven users engaging with the design artefact. This research makes three contributions. First, we demonstrate a means–end relationship between co-creation (means) and inspiration (end) to conceptualise inspirational DTAs. Second, we propose actionable design principles for the development of inspirational DTAs. Lastly, this study extends the academic discourse on information systems in travel advice from IT-enabled human agent setups to IT-enabled virtual agent configurations, positioning inspirational DTAs as a novel paradigm in the evolving landscape of travel inspiration.

Suggested Citation

  • Jan Friedli & Mateusz Dolata & Gerhard Schwabe, 2025. "How Heidi helps: designing for inspiration in digital travel assistants," Information Technology & Tourism, Springer, vol. 27(4), pages 1047-1080, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:infott:v:27:y:2025:i:4:d:10.1007_s40558-025-00328-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s40558-025-00328-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40558-025-00328-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s40558-025-00328-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:infott:v:27:y:2025:i:4:d:10.1007_s40558-025-00328-0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.