Digital Tourism partnership launches the first of the Tourism Talks
On the 29th April, the first of the Tourism Talks took place online in the framework of the Digital Tourism project. These events represent a series of short online webinars focusing on Tourism trends – the Tourism Talks – where experts present and discuss with the audience several topics.
The first webinar, titled ‘Digital inclusion in Tourism’, was introduced by Pieter van Schie, Director of Dutch Foundation of Innovation Welfare2 Work, partner of the project, who welcomed all the participants to the event.
The first speaker Arturo Garrido, CEO of Accessible Madrid, on behalf ot their partner of Baskforall, who introduced Accessible Madrid by sharing the start of his project of allowing people to more easily visit his city, Madrid, especially people with reduced mobility or disabilities. Then, according to the requests, he started to organise visits and large trips also outside Madrid, especially the South. Therefore, the company expanded very much also expanding their services.
Giorgia Marchionni, Junior Project Manager at EGInA and Coordinator of the CRHACK LAB Foligno 4D who presented the ACCEASY project. The aim of the project is to promote an inclusive and accessible European heritage for people with intellectual disabilities and/or cognitive difficulties. ACCEASY wants to reise awareness of the importance of European cultural heritage, open the cultural heritage to people with intellectual disabilities and use cultural heritage as an instrument to promote social inclusion.
Giorgia Marchionni emphasised the fact that in the framework of the project the partnership wants to promote the use of accessible communication systems, sensitise and raise awareness and claim cognitive accessibility as a right.
The second part of the online event was dedicated to the ‘New Apps For The Post Covid Era’ session during which three students from the ITE Scarpellini Foligno – Alessia Angeli, Camilla Zucchini, and Gabriele Fedeli – presented various New applications for Accessible Tourism.
- G-move is a system that allows you to count people, understand how long they stay at the same point and deduce the routes between the various areas of the city. With G-move you can know what are the attractions and places where the services are carried out in a fast way and those that, instead, imply a waiting time in real time. The system can also plan commuting based on the crowding of public transport and provide suggestions for finding a restaurant in a quiet area. https://www.g-move.com/
- INT by ITERPRETIBUS is an application that turns the smartphone of the tourist guide into a transmitter and tourists’ smartphones into a receiver. Thanks to this system, the guide can see where the tourists are, indicate to the tourist his own position and warn him in case the safety distance from the others is not respected. Thanks to this application tourists will never be in contact with each other either directly or indirectly. http://www.interpretibus.it/
- com is a portal that allows restaurants to sell vouchers and receive an immediate payment even during the closing period. These vouchers will be redeemed at the reopening. The platform, which also develops digital menus for restaurants, manages both the reception of orders and the delivery service, applying low fees and ensuring speed in payments. https://www.postodelcuore.com/
- Next Generation Hostel offers a number of integrated solutions with the aim of rethinking the concept of tourist hospitality. The system involves both promotion and management of a tourist accommodation facility. It includes a voice interaction system with Amazon Alexa, an app able to manage the different phases of the stay, from booking to mobility, a fleet of electric vehicles for micromobility and robotic trolleys that will assist the tourist inside the structure. The domotics diffused will automate the opening of the doors, the use of the elevator, the regulation of lights and air conditioning and access to the services of the structure. All in autonomy and without physical, cultural and linguistic barriers and in perfect harmony with the new perspective of next normal.
- Bippo, a contactless system that allows you to transmit any content to smartphones located near the transmitters. Positioned at strategic points, it provides tourists with information when they need it, in safety and without any kind of physical contact. Whenever a tourist will be near an attraction or point of interest, he will receive a notification with the information in multimedia format. The same in museums, where visitors can follow real narrative paths. Website: https://bippo.it/
- Overtour, a digital collective initiative that is set up in a series of virtual tours live streaming from different cities, museums, churches, parks, nature reserves of the world. Local guides and travellers open a window on their corner of the world through the digital eye of their smartphone, allowing anyone to travel from home. The tours have different formats: tourism professionals who tell the identity of their cities, travellers who accompany the spectators through the streets of the most authentic neighbourhoods, directors and museum guides, abbeys, places of historical and artistic interest that reveal the incredible treasures that they preserve. The tours take place on Twitch. https://it.overtourlive.com/
- Smart Personal Experience offers tourist services for people with disabilities or specific needs thanks to the Cityfriend. This figure provides, through an online video call on a digital platform, advice with the aim of knowing the needs and interests of the traveller. During the experience, through the app that geolocates the tourist, the cityfriend tells in a personalised way what you are visiting and provides practical and up-to-date information about the location.
- HER, a software and hardware system for hospitality outside hotels. Thanks to the chatbot, host and guest are helped in the management of the various phases of the stay, from check-in to check-out, thanks to continuous communication. The Iot device can be used to domotise the opening of doors and doors, switches, thermostats, shutters, etc… This allows the host to control consumption and avoid waste, minimising contact with guests.
- Tela, a service for the digitization and online promotion of the cultural/artistic heritage of the Italian territory. It facilitates public and private administration in the promotion of its exhibitions and events, simplifying consultation and sale. Tela was created to facilitate research, booking and public access to the main cultural centers. The platform allows tourists to buy their ticket and public administrations, museums, event promoters to sell their tickets, all thanks to the software that manages cash, orders and reservations.
- Boatsandgo, an online platform aimed at collecting and digitising services that gravitate around the world of boating. It is a comparator of nautical offers that compare online offers of charter companies, agencies and boat-sharing. The search engine, based on a specially developed algorithm, searches the web to find the offers corresponding to the filters selected by the user, such as dates, type of boat (sailboat, motorboat, dinghy etc.), crew, price etc… https://boatsandgo.com/en/
- Witoor Go wants to make smart, accessible and safe participation in sporting events and tourist-active initiatives. Thanks to an all-in-one platform of both digital and physical services, it wants to create a simple, immediate and sustainable connection between those who offer a product, or service aimed at the cyclist, and the end user. Witoor Go follows the cyclist in all the phases of his experience on two wheels: first (search events/ routes, logistic information), during (live tracking, bike rental and e-bikes) and after (sharing experiences, route archive, statistical data). https://witoor.com/en/
- WHIP LIVE is a mobile and web platform that offers cyclists the best routes based on characteristics of objective difficulty: type of bike and points of interest in the route such as hotels, agritourisms, restaurants, specialised shops, tour organisations and workshops. You can create routes from scratch for specific types of bikes, simply by adding points of interest, mandatory transit areas and arrival points. The algorithms, using the Italian and European network of cycling routes, generate the best route for each user. https://www.whip.live/it/ltitude
- Mitiga is a platform that allows in a quick and standardised way to document the COVID status of the citizen (self-declaration of the state of health, antigen test for Sars-Cov 2, vaccine). Mitiga’s purpose is to allow access to stadiums and entertainment venues only to people who have had the vaccine or who have tested negative for a Sars-Cov 2 antigen test carried out at an authorised center, in a pre-established time frame prior to the event. The authorisation to enter takes place in a totally standardised and secure manner using an identification QR Code, without detecting additional sensitive information. Allow access only to people who have had a vaccine or tested negative for the swab, drastically mitigates the risk of contagion. https://www.mitigaitalia.it/en
The webinar was very interesting and all the presentations very useful to know more about accessibility and inclusion in tourism!
