The fifth tourism panel held as part of the Bled Strategic Forum on Tuesday discussed the role of technology in tourism. Participants agreed that tourism is a sector that has been most transformed by technological development and that can benefit the most from technology.
The future of tourism, Tourism 4.0, will be created using high-performance computers, believes Mr Tomi Ilijaš, Founder and President of Slovenian firm Arctur. Arctur, a leading high performance computer provider in Central and Eastern Europe, is working with Slovenia’s best tourism and ICT faculties to create a technologically supported tourism sector that would make tourism a driver of positive change, according to Dr Urška Starc-Peceny, Chief Innovation Officer at Arctur.
According to Dr Starc-Peceny, they are working on an innovative ecosystem where every tourist can cause change. “We put a local inhabitant in the centre. In this system the impact is important.”
Towns would be given a chance to set the limits on the number of cars and tourists they can accept, and these numbers could be monitored using various sensors, Illijaš said. “Each destination could set up their own model.”
The system would be based on motivating and rewarding. Tourists would receive crypto tokens, which would have different value in different places to manage and optimise the tourist experience.
Tourists could also earn tokens by contributing to the community, for example by reporting on environmental issues or using local natural resources, for example water, sparingly, or reduce their use of hotel services, such as room cleaning. But they could also earn them by reporting about their experiences, for example in a museum, on-line in real-time to provide information to others.
Through a personal crypto passport that would be based on a trustworthy government-owned platform, tourists would be assisted when dealing with the information and supply overload.
Welcoming this vision of Tourism 4.0, Ms Helena Bulaja Madunić, Art Director & Creative Producer at Teslopolis @ My Magical Thoughts, Croatia, said that even during former Yugoslavia Slovenia has always been a pioneer in combining the analogue with the digital.
“In ten years, we will really make Tourism 4.0 a reality,” she said, adding though that a challenge would be how to merge two realities – the young generations, who are interested in technology, and the people who are still not ready to embrace it. Tourism should not only be treated as a leisure time but as a way of learning, she believes.
“We live in a time of digital transformation and exposing our cultural heritage to other people entails cooperation among various institutions,” said Ms Nienke van Schaverbeke, Head of European Collections at European Foundation, Netherlands.
She sees the role of cultural heritage institutions in collecting digital life stories and personalise the experience for each user, be it a child or an older person.
Ms Eva Štravs Podlogar, State Secretary at the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology of the Republic of Slovenia, also stressed the importance of cooperation. She said collaboration among various ministries was essential, including in the process of drawing up Slovenia’s strategy for tourism. “We cooperated with all ministries, because they are all somehow connected to tourism,” she said.
According to Ms Verena Vidrih Perko, Museum Curator at Regional Museum Kranj and University Teacher at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, the local population must also be included.
She sees new technology as an instrument to promote heritage and a tool that can “help us understand the needs of our visitors but also of locals.”
If you reconstruct a monument you destroy it because you give it only one interpretation. But if you use 3D animation, you can show several interpretations, she said.
Mr Zenel Batagelj, Partner at Valicon, Slovenia, an expert on technology, noted that tourism was the first industry that had been the seriously disrupted by technology.
The main challenge of dealing with big data is how to organise these data, then come the problems of storage, monetisation – micropayments. Batagelj sees this as the “culture that is emerging from technology.”
He believes the future will very much resemble Pokemon Go Coins and that computer games significantly influence the way of thinking and development.
Mr Georg Steiner, Tourism Director at Tourism Board Linz, Austria, presented the transformation of Linz from a city of industry, which it remains, into a city of culture.
Steel industry is very successful in Linz, but politicians decided the city also needs culture. In Linz there are not many old buildings, so they started a festival called the Ars Electronica festival, he said, adding that the city had also built a museum called Ars Electronica Center.
Commenting on Tourism 4.0, Steiner said that if Industry 4.0 is individualisation of mass industry, Tourism 4.0 is individualisation of mass tourism.
The event moderated by Mr Igor Evgen Bergant, TV news programme host & journalist & commentator at RTV Slovenia, was also addressed by Mr Zdravko Počivalšek, Minister of Economic Development and Technology of the Republic of Slovenia.
He noted that last year, Slovenia welcomed almost five million tourists, who generated 12 million nights. The number of nights generated by foreign tourists went up by 17%. “Results this year are very optimistic as well,” he said.
Slovenia’s strategy of sustainable tourism defines cultural tourism as a key product of Slovenian tourism. In the 2018-2019 period culture is the main theme of promotion of our tourism, he said, adding that thus Slovenia joined the celebration of the 2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage.
Ms Maja Pak, Director of Slovenian Tourist Board, said Slovenia was a green country at the crossroads of Europe, with one of the most dynamic ecosystems for start-ups, the home of blockchain technology of the future and the new Cilicon valley of cryptocurrencies.
“Technology has definitely changed tourism – for some it is overwhelming, for some empowering,” she said, adding that tourism inspired cooperation, cultural cooperation.
Mr Manuel Butler, Executive Director of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) described tourism as a sector that can “create a more inclusive, peaceful and equitable society”. He noted though that the tourist industry was undergoing “radical change” and that “technological transformation has only begun”.
“We are experiencing a shake-out in the value chain, in the business models, in the habits of tourists, in the new political and geopolitical scenarios.”
He also warned of the negative impact of tourism on cultural heritage. “With growth come responsibility. The responsibility to protect our natural, cultural heritage.” Tourists and hosts must be educated on sustainability, while the public and private sectors must work closely for policies to work in practice, he believes.
