In the framework of the live events on digital tourism, the European Commission has organised a series of six webinars focused on how to use ICT tools to improve the sector of tourism. Thus, the main objective of these sessions was twofold: provide support, insight and guidance on digital issues to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the tourism industry, on the one hand; and give practical advice on the day-to-day running of a business, on the other.
On the 1st April 2015, under the title “Thinking mobile”, the last webinar was held. This session aimed to explain how using smart mobile phones is impacting decisions and opinions at every point in the buying cycle and highlighted quick-wins, strategic approaches and new opportunities for small and medium enterprises in the sector of tourism.
Some interesting examples could also be implemented by tourism companies located in mountain areas such as: interactive museums where the visitor can download an application to get the information (s)he finds interesting; downloading maps with the services surrounding an specific place; reserving, booking and paying facilities for accommodation companies or virtual visits and applications based on games.
Using ICT tools for tourism can facilitate the work of tourism SMEs in mountain areas, as it has been shown in the DANTE project. But this requires two core elements:
Mountain areas should have a high-speed broadband access and a mobile access if they want to enjoy this new marketing aspect. Euromontana has signed the ENGAGE manifesto in that sense.
High prices of roaming and internet connection keep foreign tourists away from using their smart phones, which means again wasting opportunities for tourism companies. That is the reason why a common strategy at local or regional level should be developed to ensure several Wifi accesses.
If you want to learn how to develop a complete mobile strategy for tourism the full video version of the webinar is available here.
21 April 2015
