VIDEO from the Smart Tourism workshop is available now at Youtube:
As part of the annual BU Festival of Learning and as the first edition of the IFITTtalk@Bournemouth, the eTourismLab at Bournemouth University held an exciting event on Smart Tourism on 14th July 2015.
Smartness takes advantage of technology to process data in real time to produce services and products which are of value for all involved. Smart Tourism Destinations successfully implement smartness to improve the competitiveness of their destination and enhance the social, economic and environmental prosperity. Through using technology to ensure people are interconnected, processes can be designed to generate value to all stakeholders involved.
Smart Tourism put in agenda the main trends and challenges of smart tourism as well as discussion of research result on Smart Tourism conducted by eTourism Lab. The event discussed the principles of smartness and how they can be applied in a real life context.
Chaired by Professor Dimitrios Buhalis, Director of eTourism Lab, this event had the aim to engage academics and industry professionals through interesting discussions on the notion of smartness and smart tourism destinations. It attracted more than 70 people at Bournemouth and over online 98 viewers who followed the event via live-stream.
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PHOTOS FROM SMART TOURISM WORKSHOP: https://goo.gl/FYulIh
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The event was divided into two main sessions, focusing on smart tourism theoretical concepts and practice implications. In the first half, a keynote from Microsoft kicked off the event presenting state-of-the-art intelligent platforms. The academic session tackled cutting edge developments, paradigm shifts and global best practice cases. Professor Dimitrios Buhalis introduced the concept of smartness, Professor Janet Dickinson talked about the Internet of Things paradigm, while Kim Boes presented several smart tourism destination across Europe. Dr Nigel Williams talked about real time twitter conversations, Dr Philip Alford discussed smart and data-driven marketing in SMEs, while Dr Barbara Neuhofer talked about the experience and value co-creation by using smart technologies. The session was completed with the second keynote of the day by Antonio Lopez De Avila from SEGITTUR-Spain, who demonstrated the innovative and successful case of Spain becoming a smart tourism destination.
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The second afternoon session focused on industry insights and practical developments from and for tourism destinations. Jon Weaver from Bournemouth Tourism started with an introduction of Bournemouth as a smart destination. This was followed by several interesting short industry talks by representatives from Crowd, TripAdvisor, New Forest, New Mind, eRevMax, DUETTO, Fusion WiFi and ETT on smart digital platforms, destination management systems, smart tourist interconnection and infostructure, smart hospitality and revenue management and augmented reality for cultural heritage.
These great presentations have stimulated vibrant and interactive discussions between speakers and the audience. The event finished with an evening reception at the Retreat, where speakers, event organisers and participants were invited for a networking get-together.
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