Project introduction ---

Sustainable Growth for Tourism: Southern Finland project supports the recovery and strengthens the competitiveness of tourism companies

Artikkelikuva: Project introduction

Sustainable Growth for Tourism: Southern Finland project supports the recovery and competitiveness of tourism industry SMEs by developing new tourism products for the international market. The project also develops the knowledge management know-how, cyber security and sustainability of companies, taking into account the needs of different target audiences in tourism services.

The project’s objectives

The project comprises four subprojects that support each other. All project actions apply to the entire project region. The Helsinki subproject will develop digital operating models for knowledge management and promote sustainable and carbon neutral tourism. The Espoo subproject will promote the inclusiveness of tourism and cyber security.

The Turku subproject will focus on the development of new products on top of Finland’s inherent strengths, which include e.g. cleanliness, safety and silence. In addition, tourism safety will be developed. Forum Virium’s subproject is related to knowledge management and will test new forms of data use and introduce them among tourism companies.

The project emphasises joint development and productisation with companies, as well as the export of new products to international markets utilising data and new digital sales channels.

Duration, funding sources, budget and partners

• The project will run from 1 August 2021 to 31 October 2023
• The project is funded via the Helsinki-Uusimaa Regional Council and the Regional Council of Southwest Finland by the European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Union’s COVID-19 recovery measures for 2021–2023. It has a total budget of EUR 1,469,948, of which Forum Virium Helsinki’s share is EUR 399,948
• The project partners are the City of Helsinki (coordinator), Forum Virium Helsinki, Enter Espoo and Turku Science Park

The role of Forum Virium Helsinki

The core challenges of knowledge management are the finding of relevant data, deploying it and converting it into useful knowledge. It has also been found that companies in the tourism industry have a low understanding of the potential and utilisation of data. This is the need that Forum Virium Helsinki’s subproject aims to tackle by

  • collecting information on suitable data sources and their usefulness in particular
  • increasing the target audience’s understanding of opportunities and
  • piloting solutions to select business challenges to serve as examples

Benefits for Helsinki and Finland

The project corresponds well with the regional recovery plans of Uusimaa and Southwest Finland by e.g. supporting the sustainable recovery of companies. The project is also in line with the regions’ smart specialisation strategies and the Baltic Sea strategy.

Furthermore, the project supports the city strategies of the participating cities. In addition, the project is in line with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment’s tourism roadmap, as well as the strategy of Visit Finland. The project is also in line with the Ministry of Finance’s “Finland’s Sustainable Growth Programme”.

Harmonised and scalable knowledge management operating models and tools in the tourism industry promote the development of the competitiveness of Finland’s tourism industry and management during recovery from the COVID-19 crisis and the revitalisation of the tourism sector. Forum Virium Helsinki supports these efforts by identifying, modelling and testing the necessary technical and reproducible solutions and producing guidelines for them.

Forum Virium Helsinki’s subproject focuses on the connection between data and business in the tourism industry, which produces significant added value for the all-encompassing theme of knowledge management in tourism.

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