The Sustainable Growth for Tourism: Southern Finland project’s open call attracted 17 tenders. Three solutions stood out from among the many interesting tenders and were scored highest by the jury. These solutions will be tested with tourism companies this spring and summer.
The Sustainable Growth for Tourism: Southern Finland project held an open call in early 2023, seeking technical solutions that make use of data and support the knowledge management and services of tourism companies. The plan is to test the solutions with tourism companies based in the Helsinki, Espoo and Turku regions.
A total of 17 solutions and pilot proposals offered
After an evaluation, the jury selected the following three to be tested with tourism companies (other consortium members named in the brackets):
- Tridea Oy (Salmi Platform Oy): Understanding travel motivations and analysing customer experience with the help of artificial intelligence
- HMMH Consulting Oy (Tranki Consulting and Olery B.V.): Collecting, monitoring and making use of customer reviews of travel destinations and cultural sites
- Johku / Aptual Commerce Oy (Green Carbon Finland Oy): KEKATA – sustainability as the driver of a commerce ecosystem and product viability
Understanding travel motivations and analysing customer experience with the help of artificial intelligence
Tridea Oy and Salmi Platform Oy have been developing an AI solution for analysing and visualising customer feedback related to tourism. The pilot project is based on Salmi Platform’s standardised customer survey and the BisLenz business intelligence platform. The sentiment analysis and categorisation of the broad data set helps tourism organisations quickly identify the key points in customer feedback and plan their actions accordingly. A thesis will also be written for Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences during the pilot project.
Tridea Oy has developed the BisLenz tool, which allows companies to monitor the efficiency of their marketing measures, among other things. Salmi Platform Oy offers innovative digital solutions for knowledge management in the tourism and event industries and for the range of experiences offered by them. Salmi Platform’s analytics solutions can be used to analyse tourism and events systematically, in real time and in a fully digital manner.
Collecting, monitoring and making use of customer reviews of travel destinations and cultural sites
HMMH Consulting Oy in cooperation with TRanki Consulting and the Dutch Olery B.V. offered a pilot project focusing on collecting customer reviews of travel destinations and cultural sites as well as monitoring and making use of the results with the help of a technical solution. The technical solution provided by the Dutch partner, Olery B.V., automatically collects and compiles open data produced by customers on public travel review platforms, such as Google and TripAdvisor.
The goal of this pilot project is to observe the impact of customer reviews on travel destinations’ operations and gain a better overall picture of the strengths of various sites in creating value for customers. At best, the tourism companies involved in the pilot project will be able to make use of the data and take measures to develop customer satisfaction, thus providing added value for the companies’ daily operations and customers and creating economic sustainability. There is no similar solution available to destination and cultural operators in the tourism industry on the Finnish market.
HMMH Consulting Oy is focused on developing revenue management, digital services and knowledge management in the tourism industry. TRanki Consulting is the company of Tuomo Ranki, an expert in knowledge management in the tourism industry who primarily consults on development projects related to sales and marketing as well as tourism and accommodation activities. The Dutch Olery B.V. provides the tourism, accommodation and restaurant industries and software suppliers with insights and data on the millions of customer reviews published online.
KEKATA – sustainability as the driver of a commerce ecosystem and product viability
Johku (Aptual Commerce Oy) and Green Carbon Finland Oy joined forces and developed a solution that promotes sustainability. Combining Green Carbon’s ability to calculate a product’s carbon footprint and carbon offset price with Johku’s extensive and varied range of products and growing ecosystem significantly increases tourism companies’ understanding of the carbon footprint of their products and services, as well as their relationship with other comparable products and services in the ecosystem. This can be used as a basis for helping companies make their operations more sustainable in the future.
Green Carbon Finland is one of Finland’s leading experts in managing companies’ climate and environmental impacts. It helps companies estimate and offset their carbon footprint and assess the harmful environmental impacts of the companies’ business and projects. Johku is a rapidly growing e-commerce system and ecosystem widely used in the tourism industry. The system is used to sell various products, such as accommodation, activities, rental equipment, and tickets to destinations and events.
Pilot projects will kick off in spring
The next step is to hold launch meetings with the selected companies to draw up a piloting agreement and agree on the progress of the pilot projects. Forum Virium will also help the companies find suitable test users, i.e. tourism companies, to participate in the pilot projects. The pilot projects will be carried out over the course of spring and summer 2023.
“We received a number of great tenders that were interesting to read. As judges, it was not an easy decision for us. We’re very excited about the upcoming pilot projects and believe that the solutions will genuinely benefit tourism companies,” praises the project’s Project Manager Tiina Inki.
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