Archive for the ‘Tourism’ Category

This weekend the 870-mile Wales Coast Path (WCP) opens, a walkable route that stretches all the way from Chepstow to Saltney, Chester. Combined with the existing Offa’s Dyke Path, Wales will become the only place in the world where it’s both theoretically and practically possible to circumnavigate an entire country on foot.

Pembrokeshire or Shangri La?

What Wales lacks in ‘Land of Milk and Honey’ weather it more than makes up for with scenery, activities, coastal access, and natural and cultural heritage — not to mention actual milk and honey. That’s why last year the WCP was the #1 travel pick for Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 2012, beating Borneo, Sicily, Arunachel Pradesh (described as a modern Shangri-La), and six other contenders for the top spot.

From the rugged cliffs of Pembrokeshire to the geologically unique landscape of Anglesey, dolphin-spotting in New Quay and heritage from the prehistoric to the industrial, any project of this scale brings a whole series of challenges and opportunities. That’s why GeoVation, the innovation arm of the Ordnance Survey has included the path and the communities along it in its 2012 GeoVation Challenge.

The GeoVation Challenge

In the past few years, the OS has been opening up its data, making it easier and more exciting for people with great ideas to use spatial data to make those concepts into reality. The GeoVation challenges offer £125,000 worth of prizes to help develop the best ideas that use geography and geolocation.

At Challenge-specific pow wows, GeoVation looked at some of the problem areas that arise with the new path, and at how it will redefine some of the long-standing questions and challenges for the relevant communities.

For example, we can’t change the wet Welsh weather, but we can find ways to make tourism less seasonal, by providing more wet-weather activities. There are increased (and existing) needs for accommodation, toilet facilities, transport and parking, and mobile and internet connectivity. Addressing these needs is not only helpful for visitors but provides engagement opportunities for communities, as well as potential business opportunities.

Inventorium and GeoVation

GeoVation and Inventorium were brought together by our shared dedication to open innovation and collaboration.

Inventorium held a workshop on March 1st, where we brought together stakeholders to generate and shape ideas that could be uploaded to the GeoVation Challenge website. We wanted to engage with tourism providers, local authorities, accommodation providers, outdoor activity groups, local organisations and voluntary bodies, to encourage fruitful collaborations that might not otherwise have happened.

There were 22 participants, and ideas were submitted to the Challenge website, along with other idea submissions from around the UK. We are waiting to hear the winners of the challenge who will go forward to the GeoVation Bootcamp on June 22nd and 23rd, where the concepts will begin to take shape as potentially viable commercial prospects. The winners of the challenge will be announced in early July. The top prize money is £40,000, with two further prizes and a community prize of £1,000 and we’ll keep you posted.

The best GeoVation Challenge ideas will win big prizes, but when they’re implemented, they’ll mean everyone wins.

At the digital innovation camp in Ryadyer on 10th March, many organizations created opportunities and thought smartly about future digital tourist destination management. The hard work starts now.

One idea was how to promote the All Wales Coastal Path which opens May 2012 and attract new ramblers to the stunning coast line.  Collaboration with the minister, Welsh Assembly Government, unitary authorities, charitable bodies, local organizations and tourism companies is now on the cards to flush out ideas further. Watch this space.

Change often happens as a ‘pull response’ by market forces triggered for example by: an economic downturn, unexpected natural disasters, local outbreaks of disease such as Foot & Mouth, new tourist profiles as population age and wealth concentrations change, but most often by leaps in technology.

The travel industry is renowned for constantly changing. It segments into overseas and UK-based tourism. Inevitably overseas tourism is driven with ‘push agendas’ with industry operators focusing on: packages for new destinations, a new trend for bespoke adventure itineraries, budget airlines opening up new accessible destinations in Europe, promoting city-break attractions etc. UK-based tourism is similar, only with local perspectives. The Future of Tourism event focused on tourism in Wales and our delegates reflected the importance of the workshop, coming from diverse interests such as: local Tourist or Food enterprises, Arts and Culture and Environment and Heritage organisations, Digital Technologists, Tourism Communities, and people seeking to start a new enterprise or expand their current activity.

Over 50 people registered and 42 people attended the busy workshop in Llandudno Junction on 16th November 2010. Martin Owen spoke at the start, introducing ideas on niche markets. Technology has given the individual tourist more choice and control by increasing awareness of options, access to shopping around to take advantage of real competition, and importantly, access to information about destinations and a range of activities which might suit families, young people or mature tourists.

Innovation in local tourism is vital to the lifeblood of Wales and its local economy. The agenda for the day was explicit: to find innovative ways to address four key questions using digital technologies for maximising Wales’s assets. The four questions were:

• How will tomorrow’s customer choose their holiday?

• What will be there for them to choose?

• How will they make their buying decision?

• Why choose Wales?

The questions were addressed through a combination of a talk by keynote presenter Ed Parsons a Geospatial Technologists from Google, discussion groups and practical idea generation activities led by the Inventorium Team. Issues specifically addressed were: increasing revenue and promoting delegates’ tourist businesses, reducing the effects of seasonality, using new geographical locative web and mobile technologies to enhance visitor experience, and enhancing visitor service information and reservation facilities. Ed used many examples to illustrate his points. One suggestion was linking renowned artefacts now in national museums with their local origins to expand tourist interest. A good case is the Mold Cape, presently on display in the British Museum in London and recently featured in the BBC’s British Museum project “A History of the World in 100 Objects”. The Cape’s extraordinary workmanship and uniqueness reflected an artistically sophisticated Bronze Age society living in the Mold area nearly 4,000 years ago. Whilst the workshop focused on innovative technology applied to tourism in Wales, some delegates with business interests or ideas beyond the borders, were thinking hard about widening their view to the bigger more lucrative possibilities of overseas tourism.

It can provide valuable tourism information as well as leisure and entertainment.

On the Mobile App Workshop Carole Startin, Tourism Partnership North Wales said,
“Everything is becoming digitally based so it’s important to keep up with this fast changing market and utilise the technology to drive tourism business into North Wales. Apps are a key part of this new phenomenon so it’s important for all sectors of the tourism industry to work together to harness new technology to keep North Wales ahead of the game.

http://www.tpnw.org