Bild från Göteborgsvarvet
Funding

Data is key for next step in tourism services

2022-02-28

Access to data, both publicly and privately held, is becoming increasingly important for tourism providers to foster uptake of innovative technologies to prove resource efficient and innovative services. IMCG supports businesses who want to develop an offer for this growing destination data market.

Several actors in the tourism industry have made large progress in digitalization during the pandemic and are eager to continue the development when opening destinations for business again. New digital services for safety during the pandemic, as well as using data to forecast the return of visitors is today more or less available on all larger destinations.

More advanced tools such as digital twins, augmented reality (AR) and Metaverse are examples of tools being tested at Destination Gothenburg Sweden.

“Our customer Destination Gothenburg Sweden is a good example of where several successful investments into smart tourism have been done. They early understood the need to gather and use data in their tourism services like weekly statistics and purchase pattern segmentation” says Jonas Norrman.

Next step: Digital infrastructure

Next step for destinations is to back up successful demonstrations of digital solutions with digital infrastructure that supports a continuous use and roll-out of digital solutions to all interested actors on the destination.

Digital infrastructure is mostly owned and offered to the market by private actors. Examples are telecom networks, payment solutions and mobile solutions such as digital maps and routing systems. Still, there is no bigger private platform available acting as a destination data utility. There are blueprints for Destination Data Platforms, but no actor has yet acted beyond their own business and data segment.

“There is a huge void for markets to move into, and there is now plenty of investment and funding opportunities for these actors”, says Jonas Norrman.

Funding from Transition Pathway for Tourism

The EU has presented a strategy called Transition Pathway for Tourism in which tourism is presented as an important industrial ecosystem in Europe. In this strategy it is concluded that access to data, both publicly and privately held, is increasingly important for tourism providers to foster uptake of innovative technologies to prove resource efficiency and innovative services.

Digitalization and Sustainability main EU-priorities

Digitization and Sustainability are the main priorities in the EU during the current funding program, Horizon Europe. Several calls will open during 2022 and support development of digital infrastructure at European destinations.

“There is much to gain from working together to establish Smart Tourism Destinations and local data utilities in similar ways”, says Jonas Norrman.

IMCG offers support to businesses who would like to develop an offer for this growing destination data market. We offer services to get connected to a relevant ecosystem for innovation, to develop and write project applications for EU funding and we support the execution of funded projects.

Read More

Transition Pathway for Tourism

Mission Area: Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities. Foresight on Demand Brief in Support of the Horizon Europe Mission Board

Smart Tourism Destinations

Horizon Europe on tourism

Jonas Norrman, Change management expert

Get in touch with Jonas Norrman