University of Aveiro, 2018

Group work with Ana Oliveira, João Conde, Luis Borges, Inês Ramalhão

Recently, big cities like Porto, in Portugal, are loosing their identity because tourism has grown so much that it clashes with the daily lives of the residents. We understand that tourist is essential for the economic and social development, so the goal was to find a solution that facilitate the relationship between who lives there and who visits. 

With the aim of controlling the tourism flow, the app Mark Me was created with the aim of improving the interaction between locals and tourists, so they can talk and meet to share not so touristy places, local events and even cheaper or special hidden places in the city.

We believe that this collaboration can change the behaviour of the travellers that look for a closer experience of the citu they’re visiting, improve the experience of the locals by giving them the opportunity to share and meet people from around the world.

The app works on a map, according to the live location of the user.

On one side, it shows you the nearest spots to visit and live information updated by the users about how full is it and which events are going on there. These spots are divided in four categories, each one with a different color: nature, nightlife, culture and marks. Marks are fixed locals added by the app that are the most touristic places.

If you slide left with your finger, you find the other map where you can check people around the city chat with them to ask or give a reccomendation for example.

The Mark Me campaign promotes the advantages of using the app by showing the interaction between locals and tourists.

Before the lauching of the app, some stickers with messenger codes will be arranged in cities, so that people can scan to start to talk with Mark, the facebook chatbot. This chatbot explains the app, promotes it and shows some events nearby that are promoted by Mark Me, such as peddy papers. The beta app is launched with the marks spots, so people can get in touch with the app and reccomend it.