Chapter Preparing tourism businesses for the digital future Abstract

Box 2.8. Initiatives supporting the digital transformation of tourism, country approaches
France: France NUMerique is a government initiative launched early 2019 designed to help and support small businesses and SMEs in their digital transformation. It aims to support the digital transformation of micro and small businesses by providing information and tools through an online platform focused on business models, upgrading technology and understanding options for SMEs. An accompanying network - Activators France Num – with more than 1 500 business counsellors spread all over France are already mobilised to advise companies who want to achieve their digital transformation. For tourism, the platform aims to offer an innovative solution to raise awareness of the challenges of digital transformation, obtain targeted recommendations, find tourism-specialised Activators France Num advisors nearby, and identify events and meetings organised locally, as well as funding offers. It also provides a self-diagnosis tool for businesses to learn how to digitise their tourism business. Performance of the platform and associated network is being monitored and will inform future improvements to the initiative (www.francenum.gouv.fr/).
Luxembourg: Digitalisation is a major challenge for the tourism industry in Luxembourg; but it is also a huge opportunity. The Government is committed to supporting and promoting the digital transformation of the tourism sector, making use of new technology to enhance the promotion of the country, providing tourists with better information to help informed decisions and improve their experience while visiting. The Ministry of the Economy, as well as Luxembourg for Tourism and the regional tourist offices, analyse ways of digitalising their services on an ongoing basis, including:

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  Developing a more efficient digitalised system for registering tourists in accommodation establishments. The new system will make it possible to collect fast and reliable statistical data relating to overnight stays and source markets.
  
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  Planning a single national platform to connect as many services as possible. The platform will provide tourists with information and guidance, making the planning process easier.
  

The Fit 4 Digital initiative helps tourism SMEs to use on information and communication technology to become more competitive. The initiative provides consultancy, diagnostic services, support in devising and implementing digitalisation-oriented action plans and help with meeting associated costs, thus encouraging enterprises to take a step towards digital transformation. Open to all SMEs, the support includes intervention of a specialised private consultancy company chosen by the participating entity, 360-degree diagnosis of the company’s organisation and its processes, definition and implementation of a digitalisation-oriented action plan, and financial assistance for the consultancy costs incurred.
An additional approach has been to aid decision-making by developing diagnostic platforms. Some countries have developed platforms with diagnostic tools to help traditional tourism SMEs determine where and how digital tools can be integrated, such as the “Fit4Digital” initiative in Luxembourg, the “Smart Destinations” Project in Spain, or France NUMerique (Box 2.8).
The “Smart Destination Reference Model” in Spain, for example, has been designed so that tourist destinations and businesses can successfully cope with transformations and challenges derived by the new economic, social and technological environment worldwide. Therefore, it proposes a voluntary procedure of comprehensive diagnosis and planning based on a complex methodology that covers up a set of 400 criteria, 24 fields of evaluation, all arranged under 4-core axis: innovation, technology, sustainability and accessibility.
Furthermore, shifts are occurring in the way consumers search, book, travel and engage in the destinations they travel to (WEF, 2017; García Sánchez, 2019), and governments are taking steps to utilise newly available data to maintain the quality of the tourism offer and market their country as a desirable destination to visit. Consumer research reveals trends toward hyper-personalisation and customisation of travel products and services (Skift and Adobe, 2018; Visa, 2017). Data analytics, personal assistants and chatbots can make product suggestions in real time, channel digital customers towards preferred suppliers, and remind consumers of their searches and abandoned shopping carts.
VisitEngland, for example, has launched a Digital Marketing Toolkit to help tourism businesses improve their understanding of digital marketing and better promote their business. It also operates the Tourism Experience Great Britain (TXGB) platform, which is a one-stop exchange for tourism suppliers to manage live availability, pricing and bookings across multiple distributors via an online booking system, and connect with new customers. These initiatives will be complemented by the new Tourism Data Hub, which is designed to transform the way tourism analytics and data are used, providing tourism businesses access to data to better know their markets and tailor their products accordingly (Box 1.18).
Path forward for tourism policy makers
Governments have an important role to play in creating the right framework conditions for the digital transformation of tourism business models and the wider tourism ecosystem. Integrated and coherent policy approaches are needed to leverage the opportunities of digitalisation while also addressing challenges and minimising any negative consequences that may emerge. Policy work can also be positioned across a spectrum of tourism businesses (e.g. digital natives, hybrids and tourism SMEs with low levels of digitalisation).
A well-conceived policy approach involves a mix of short and long-term initiatives that foster conditions to increase digital technology uptake; it will encourage SME participation by reducing barriers and enhancing opportunities to digitalisation; and it will encourage new ways of working, new approaches to management and new digital cultures. Efforts can be framed along the following trajectories:

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