Data Space for tourism (DIGITAL-2023-CLOUD-DATA-AI-05-DATATOURISM)

Develop and deploy the data space and its infrastructure on the basis of the blueprint elaborated under the preparatory action of the previous WP. Further engage the ecosystem’s community and ensure the interconnection with European, national and local initiatives, in both urban and rural settings, as well as with other sectoral data spaces.

Develop pilot use cases for different data types and fields of activities related to tourism, for example in the area of accommodation supply and demand data, combining data from public and private providers in view of the upcoming Short Term Rental legislative initiative on a voluntary basis.

The awarded project(s) will use, in so far as possible, the smart cloud-to-edge middleware platform Simpl, and work in partnership with the Data Spaces Support Centre deployed under the first WP in order to ensure alignment with the rest of the ecosystem of data spaces implemented with the support of Digital Europe Programme. The joint work will target the definition of:

• the data space reference architecture, building blocks and common toolboxes;
• the common standards, including semantic standards and interoperability protocols, both domain-specific and cross-cutting;
• the data governance models, business models and strategies for running data spaces.

Expected outcome and Deliverables

• Infrastructure for the Tourism Data Space.
• Connections between relevant local and national data ecosystems and initiatives at EU level.
• Establish connections with other sectoral data spaces.
• Guidance/training documents to involve stakeholders in sharing data.
• Exploitation of available data for better interconnection, exchange of information and reuse.
• Once the data space is operational, regular updates on usage data and troubleshooting.

Objective

The objective is to develop a trusted and secure common European data space for tourism, which will provide the ecosystem with access to information, with an impact on productivity, greening and sustainability, innovative business models and upskilling. It will give the possibility of aligning offers to tourists’ expectations, adapting service proposals to new tourist groups, predicting a high influx of tourists, and thus allow planning of resources more efficiently, and creating new business opportunities.

The data space for tourism will be closely connected to other sectoral data spaces, such as the data space for cultural heritage. The work will build on the outcome of the two preparatory actions selected in the previous WP.

The common European tourism data space will benefit and support all stakeholders (national and local authorities, destination management organizations or DMOs, and the private sector). SMEs account for almost all enterprises in tourism sector (99,9%); 91% of these SMEs are micro-enterprises16. SMEs face structural challenges in untapping the potential of data to innovate their services and business models, and this issue is exacerbated by the fragmentation of data, which is created and held by different providers, as well as presented and governed through diverse models.

The project will develop a minimum of two pilot use cases for different data types and fields of activities related to tourism, for example in the area of accommodation supply and demand data, combining data from public and private providers in view of the upcoming Short Term Rental legislative initiative on a voluntary basis. This action should take into account similar initiatives carried out at European level (such as the public-private partnership between Eurostat and Booking, Airbnb, Tripadvisor and Expedia, and the upcoming test case for a data space set up by the European Commission on tourism data), as well as relevant private initiatives.