A market-ready solution for sustainable tourism
Finding unexplored destinations, daytrips without traffic jams and museum visits without waiting in line, the BayernCloud Tourismus platform is designed to facilitate all of these benefits. As a central data node, the platform serves as an information hub that allows tourism providers and tourism locations to call up relevant information – at any time and from anywhere – and utilize it or make it available in their own service offerings.
The project is based on the idea of an open, transparent and secure digital ecosystem where data and services are mutually shared and made available. BayernCloud Tourismus is being established as a federated cloud infrastructure with a design that follows the basic principles of the European project GAIA-X.
The research project, which was financed by the Bavarian Ministry for Economics, Regional Affairs and Energy (StMWi), was completed in 2021. Since then the newly-created center of competence for digitalization within Bayern Tourism Marketing GmbH (BayTM) has been coordinating the permanent establishment of the project and introducing it into practice.
Efforts to digitally transform the Bavarian tourism industry have gained enormous momentum for several years. The corona pandemic also made it clear how much demand there is for holiday activities within one’s own region. Crowded attractions and long traffic jams at Bavarian lakes and mountains highlight the need to manage the flow of visitors in a conscious, sustainable and digital manner.
With this in mind, the BayernCloud Tourismus platform is designed to facilitate a mutual exchange of data in order to ideally respond to guests and their needs. Among other things, the system offers the possibility to explore new destinations, review the occupancy of lodges or plan a simple journey. Those who benefit most from the platform are small-to-medium companies (SMEs) in the Bavarian tourism industry, such as lodges, restaurants and hotels. The result is a digital ecosystem for the Bavarian tourism industry that is designed to lower the acceptance threshold among SME’s for cloud-based solutions, reduce costs and increase efficiency.
The BayernCloud Tourismus project serves as a reference architecture and thus as a framework for designing a digital ecosystem platform. An intelligent data management system forms the foundation for the exchange of information and resources, as well as for networking among SMEs.
The project also involved analyzing various use cases - such as a family holiday in the mountains - and driving forward the identification of a data foundation for tourism application scenarios through discussions with players in the tourism industry. This special function of the platform as a reference architecture allows it to be held up as a successful example of an industry-wide concept.
The goal of the BayernCloud Tourismus platform is to strengthen the Bavarian tourism sector in a sustainable manner. The project is intended to establish a prototype for open and digital infrastructures, after which BayTM will be in a position to use it as a way to create innovations and new business models.
The final report issued by fortiss provides an excellent foundation for putting the project into practice. It offers a detailed description of the results, as well as targeted recommendations for action. These include suggestions on how the acquired findings can be used for the organizational development of an industry-wide, connected data infrastructure and for the technical development of the platform as a future data hub for tourism.
Under the leadership of the BayTM center of competence, the BayernCloud Tourismus platform will be used to make all of the data available that is required for tourism marketing and destination management. Providers of tourism services can utilize this information as a basis for further applications and business models.
fortiss implemented the project between 2018 and 2021 together with Kempten University, Outdooractive AG, destination.one and Allgäu GmbH and with the support of Bayern Tourismus Marketing GmbH (BayTM).
Using the research results as a foundation, the platform will continue to be implemented under the direction of BayTM, the official tourism marketing organization for Bavaria.
