Knowledge management and data harnessed to benefit tourism in Suomenlinna

Artikkelikuva: Knowledge management and data harnessed to benefit tourism in Suomenlinna

In spring 2021, the Six City Strategy (6Aika) project Carbon Neutral Tourism launched a series of knowledge management pilots. The lessons learned in these pilots are now being refined in a new Suomenlinna pilot in collaboration with the Governing Body of Suomenlinna and project operators.

The aim of the knowledge management pilots was to provide a competitive advantage to companies in the tourism industry and travel destinations with knowledge management. Knowledge management benefits the development of tourism operations by facilitating the development of sustainable tourism innovations and forecasting the impacts of measures and events.

Visualising data for the benefit of restaurants and museums

The 6Aika: Carbon Neutral Tourism project is now in the process of further refining the knowledge management pilot. The new pilot involves developing a concept and prototype with metrics that will allow companies in Suomenlinna to more effectively forecast the demand for and timing of their services and the necessary resources to facilitate business development. The solutions are being developed in collaboration with the Governing Body of Suomenlinna and project operators. The Governing Body of Suomenlinna is a government agency that restores, maintains, administers and provides information about Suomenlinna, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

There are approximately 30 providers of tourism services operating in Suomenlinna. Many of these service providers are microenterprises for which tourism is only a secondary source of income, as a result of which they lack the resources to build a knowledge management solution themselves. As such, the aim of the pilot is to build a solution that will refine data into an easy-to-understand visual form and be available to as many service providers operating in Suomenlinna as possible. The target audience of the pilot includes many different types of operators, such as restaurants and cafés, museums and exhibition services, water traffic services as well as one accommodation provider.

Tapping into the vast mass of data available on Suomenlinna

As more data is accumulated, companies can eventually start deepening their visitor management and innovation needs and developing their services based on the data. The knowledge management metrics will be enriched in upcoming hypothesis workshops in collaboration with KnowUrBiz.

The earlier you can validate the quality, suitability and limitations of your data, the easier it is to understand the challenges involved in the development of the desired solution. The pilot solution will be developed by utilising an extensive mass of data on Suomenlinna ferry traffic, such as visitor numbers, historical data, forecasts and other data, which will be combined with visitor experience data generated by the Governing Body of Suomenlinna. This data has not been previously utilised in a form that would be easy to grasp by the service providers of Suomenlinna or visualised. The pilot will continue until the end of February 2022.

The methods of the tourism pilot

The service-side and technology of the pilot are being developed side-by-side based on agile methods and in collaboration with tourism service providers to meet the needs of the data platform. These needs include the easy combination, harmonisation, editing and analysis of data and the use of artificial intelligence for tourism development needs and reporting.

Together with cloud technologies, modern data platforms facilitate the cost-efficient utilisation of new data types and data sources together with artificial intelligence, agile pilots and prototypes.

More information about the 6Aika: Carbon Neutral Tourism project.

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