We are happy to say that the Tourism 4.0 Partnership currently includes 200+ international partners. Taken all together, it would be fair to say, that one can not co-create such an achievement without some concrete planning.
The Tourism 4.0 initiative had been initiated by Arctur in 2017, building on two fundamental ideas in which technology serves only as a mean to enacting them: first idea is that the preservation of the quality of life of local residents is at the heart of it all, while the second one is that tourism should build on data-driven strategic planning aligned with the UN Sustainable Goals.
Six years later, Tourism 4.0 pledges are significantly co-creating the EU Transition Pathway for Tourism, published by EU Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship & SMEs!
In 2020 the European Commission adopted a new industrial strategy with the intention of helping the EU industry lead the green and digital transformation. Then the COVId-19 pandemic came, drastically affecting the speed on these two transformations, and the Commission recognised that the companies pursuing sustainability and digitalisation are to be among the tomorrow’s leaders.
The Commission, in unison with industry and stakeholders, co-created transition pathways covering various industrial ecosystems, with the tourism ecosystem being the first ecosystem to start working on its own transition pathway, as it was the hardest hit by the pandemic.
As we have through the years accumulated vast amount of experience, Tourism 4.0 came out swinging and Tourism 4.0 concrete pledges are highlighted within the context of the EU Transition pathway for tourism report on more than one occasion.
Arctur’s role is seen as crucial within the scope of innovative ideas such as digitalising natural and cultural heritage for tourism and cultural industries and within various topics covering digital transformation as a whole. The EU Transition pathway for tourism report recognises Arctur as an innovative SME, which provides tools that have already successful use cases and can support data availability and data-driven decision making for destination management organisations and steer tourist flows to avoid overcrowding, and which supports both basic and digital skills of tourism SMEs, based on their needs assessment.
The biggest recognition of them all, however, comes from being highlighted as a pivotal partner of the Digital Europe programme, as Arctur is currently a partner of two Digital Europe projects: Dates - data spaces for tourism project and 5D Culture - data spaces for heritage project.
Accelerating the two EU transitions has never felt more heart-warming and we are grateful to all involved stakeholders for placing Tourism 4.0 ideas at the top of the field. We promise to continue with striding ahead, co-creating the necessary changes for development of tourism of the future.
