DIGITAL TOURISM IN THE EU

The European Commission has implemented several actions to boost the competitiveness of small businesses in the European tourism sector, integrate them into global digital value chains, and improve their ability to create more jobs.

Actions to help tourism businesses go digital

Live Events on Digital Tourism: This Pilot series of webinars is designed to provide guidance on digital issues to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the tourism industry. Led by industry experts, the webinars examine recent trends in tourists' use of technology to discover, plan and share their travel experiences.

Topics covered include:

• Digital marketing strategy;
• Online reputation and use of social media;
• m-tourism (use of smartphones throughout the entire customer experience).

Digital Tourism Network

A Digital Tourism Network has been launched that will comprise representatives from the industry and EU countries to discuss how to boost the innovation capacity of tourism entrepreneurs, especially SMEs. The work of the Network will feed into tourism policy priorities announced by Commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska.

The Network will:

• serve as a forum to brainstorm on challenges and opportunities for digital tourism businesses, such as regulatory fragmentation, ensuring a level playing field, big data ownership and access to technology;
• help shape new actions designed to increase the uptake of digital technologies by the tourism sector and improve SMEs' inclusion in the global digital value chain;
• serve as a contact point for their respective networks, including for example, technology providers, online tourism actors of all sizes, traditional tourism service providers, digital policy influencers and public administrations.

The tourism representatives will come from the public and private sector, from both digital and non-digital backgrounds.

Tourism Business Portal

The Tourism Business Portal is a one-stop-shop to improve the establishment, management, promotion, and expansion of businesses. It includes plenty of articles, tutorials, online tools, and links to best practices to help entrepreneurs learn about the management of a tourism business in the digital era.

Aims of the Actions

• Strengthen the skill base of tourism SMEs, whose growth potential is often unexploited due to limited access to life-long learning and awareness of developments in the smart use of technologies;
• Include small businesses in the digital value chain by:
  • helping with the design of tailored digital solutions for the tourism industry;
  • offering a chance to take full advantage of the opportunities of the digital market to increase competitiveness;
  • providing access to new business opportunities and new markets to increase visibility and revenues;
• Boost the ICT-driven innovation potential of tourism SMEs and empower tourism entrepreneurs in online marketisation.