A Tourism 4.0 Success Story in EXPO 2020

Tourism 4.0 with outstanding results, presented Slovenia as one of the lead countries in the field of digital innovation of cultural heritage.

At the same time, it raises awareness about using data as the strategic good in the strategic planning of sustainable tourism. On EXPO 2020 in Dubai, a premiere of the video about innovative, heritage projects of Slovenian lead tourist destinations, was held. 

In the Slovenian pavilion on Expo 2020 in Dubai, under the Digitalisation and artificial intelligence thematic event, a presentation “Tourism 4.0 – A success story” was held. Tourism 4.0 team presented a Slovenian success story of using high technologies in the development of sustainable tourism. 

“Tourism that puts the quality of life of the local residents in the centre and builds the whole ecosystem around it”, as told dr. Urška Starc Peceny, the Chief Innovation and the Tourism 4.0 Dept. Lead, to the participants from all around the world. 

The presentation focused on two main Tourism 4.0 innovations.

1. Digital innovation of Cultural Heritage with a premiere of a short film, which presents the process of implementing some projects and their results, available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hPFhKiyYMU
2. Measuring the impact of tourism with the award-winning innovation – Tourism Impact Model, an advanced tool that gives an objective, holistic picture of the impact of tourism on different societal aspects (environment, economy, culture, collaboration, quality of life, etc.), which can be used for strategic planning of sustainable tourism on a certain destination. By using TIM and the big data analytics, gathered also on a local level, we are creating sustainable and responsible tourism for the future. More about TIM: https://tourism4-0.org/tim/.

Tourism 4.0 team lives by the sustainable tourism standards in everyday life. Coincidentally, they arrived in Dubai when Slovenian ultramarathoner Martin Strel organized an event “50X50 kilometres in 24 hours for the 50. anniversary of United Emirates. With his swimming, he wanted to put a focus on the importance of a sustainable attitude towards clean water, which the Arctur team joined.