Tourist destinations are now, more than ever, building competitive tourist places using new business models and state of the art technology, such as IoT, big data, blockchain, artificial intelligence, VR and AR. However, without a proper information environment these business models often fail. The T4.0 collaborative ecosystem is focused on facilitation of the just-in-time information exchange between various stakeholders from different places or markets using the key enabling. In this way, the platform reduces the information and choice overload, which currently presents one of the key barriers in the tourism business. What is more, various tourism providers can use the platform to share their services, products or information to users at all levels of the industry (e.g. G2C, B2B, B2C, C2C).
In order to build such an ecosystem, basic research is needed. For this reason, the team within the consortium of the research project Tourism 4.0 TRL 3-6 has started an extensive survey among local and national authorities, tourist organisations and tourist providers as well as within the civil society active in the field of tourism across Slovenia. The goal is to understand the current state and technology readiness level in the tourism ecosystem in Slovenia and to discover its innovation potential to develop the Tourism 4.0 collaborative ecosystem.
The questions in the survey are structured to cover all aspects relevant for the development of tourism of the future. The results of the survey will enable us to compare the ideal tourism ecosystem based on the literature review with the current situation. Such an analysis will show us how the key enabling technologies should be used to move the current tourism ecosystem closer to the ideal one. If you would like to support our endeavor to transition the tourism in Slovenia, do not hesitate to volunteer as a participant in the research by emailing us to info@tourism4-0.org.
Guidelines for T 4.0
Prior to the research activities, the ideas of Tourism 4.0 have been spread by the Tourism 4.0 Partnership. It boasts with a number of prominent members, such as Slovenian Ministry of Economic Development and Technology as well as Ministry of Public Administration, Tourism and Hospitality Chamber of Slovenia, Association of Towns and Municipalities of Slovenia, University of Ljubljana, University of Maribor, University of Primorska and many partners joining from all over the world.
Not only research, but also projects focused on validation and deployment of the technologies are planned in order to transform Slovenia into a testbed, Tourism 4.0 Living Lab Slovenia. Further activities in the area of Alps, Danube, Balkans and Mediterranean are set to spread the concepts to an international level. While discussing with different stakeholders, we were confronted with countless ideas, suggestion and questions. This led to the creation of Guidelines for development of Tourism 4.0 ready multimedia contents, portal, archive and reservation system (for now in Slovene). The aim is to help any stakeholder to understand Tourism 4.0 and include the new concepts into their strategies and implementation.
This is only the first version of the guidelines that will be continuously upgraded with the knowledge and insights gained during the research project that aims to create solutions to monitor people flows, personalize the tourist experience and reward behavior of positive impact. To conclude, the T4.0 collaborative ecosystem can only be created together, with the collaboration of all stakeholders in tourism. If you would like to join us on our journey of creating the tourism of the future, join the Tourism 4.0 Partnership and participate in the paradigm shift.
