GeoGuides. Urban geotourism offer powered by mobile application technology

Scientific research about geological and geomorphological heritage recently proved to be the base of new opportunities for tourism. The peculiar case of urban landscape analysis offers new frontiers to the traditional urban cultural tourism. The tourism offer based on natural aspects of urban areas is described in this paper thanks to three examples of urban geotourism tools: Geoguide Lausanne, TOURinStones and Geoguide Rome mobile applications. Each case focuses on the transfer of geoscientific knowledge from scientific research to the "tourist" content, with the innovative support of the mobile application technology. The apps contribute to the promotion of the links between cultural and geological heritage, which is the goal of urban geotourism: to convey the message that substrate profoundly influences the culture that is established on it. The mobile application technology has many strengths for interpretation, e.g. by overlaying images or adding sounds and videos, which allow the visitors to discover landforms now covered by buildings and infrastructures; it has also technical strengths, such as looking for additional information and organizing the city visit at home or to re-experience it after the trip. The apps do not have any impact on the field, they are concise, easy to read, interactive and funny. The public understanding of science is very important, it helps enhancing the role of the researchers and the impact of their work on the society and the daily lives of citizens. In this context GeoGuide apps are useful to transfer knowledge and make it usable to people.