As part of the first edition (2020-22) of the Intelligent Cities Challenge (ICC), participating cities were supported in their green and digital transition. When establishing their ambitions for the ICC programme, cities selected specific thematic tracks under which they would focus on and develop their Action Plan under.
This fifth article on the subject focuses on cities working on the Green and Digital Transition in Tourism thematic track. This thematic track is oriented towards pursuing smart and sustainable practices as well as diversification in the tourism sector.
Tourism has been one of the most affected sectors by COVID 19, and the tourism recovery has been based in two main pillars: sustainability and digitalisation. ICC has allowed cities to identify different solutions that have accelerated the recovery after the pandemic crisis. The disruptive technologies such as IoT, big data, augmented and virtual reality have been key in many destinations.
In total, 17 ICC cities worked on the green and digital transition in tourism thematic track, and they designed 29 initiatives to implement under the ICC programme. Most of the solutions under this track are focused on destination branding, tourism strategy and the creation of alliances. In this perspective, cities have been developing digital tools (platforms and dashboards, apps) as well as advanced technologies features (AR/VR) to enhance the tourists’ experience, improve communication with visitors, and develop the tourism sector through data-driven decisions.
Heraklion’s digital tourist empowerment
To transform into a digitally empowered sustainable tourist destination, Heraklion developed an internet of things (IoT) platform. The platform helps with the collection, and processing of urban data from various sources in the external environment of the city. Smart controlled parking slots, noise levels estimation, and traffic and crowd estimation are only a few of the platform’s helpful functionalities. The city also invested in a digital tourism application, Interactive Heraklion, which involves an entire digital infrastructure, including augmented reality experiences, to provide information to tourists. With this application, Heraklion wants to highlight cultural routes and points creating an innovative, interactive new experience for tourists.
Logroño’s digitalisation applications
Logroño (Spain) launched 3 initiatives linked to the green and digital transition in tourism track. A first initiative, Heritage Digitisation, enables tourists to experience virtual and hybrid visits of the city. The city digitised its heritage linked to wine culture and created AR/VR contents to enrich its cultural offer. Secondly, Logroño also installed Smart Wine Tourism Office & Stores, dedicated physical and virtual info points which offer personalised services for tourists. To accommodate this, Logroño introduced its Tourism mobile app. Thirdly, the city also invested in a tourist observatory, which aims at creating a dedicated tourism data infrastructure. The observatory gathers data about visitors and their activities and assesses tourism performance which in turn will help the city to adapt its infrastructure and offer accordingly.
Digital solutions to support tourists in Kavala
Building on a digital tourism experience is frequently accompanied by the pursuit of sustainable tourism development and carry out the twin transition. This is the case with the Kavala (Greece), which provides a solution consisting of goods and services that strive to improve the visitor experience through various efforts including an advanced e-guide tour system that offers ‘experiential’ tours in space and time. Organizing points of interest for tourists, viewing them, and navigating to them depending on the geolocation of the mobile device and user's preferences. The goal of the solution is to improve Kavala's tourism product to make the city more inviting to tourists, as well as to combat seasonality and pandemic-related issues.
Discover all the ICC cities’ deliverables here.