At the occasion of the Forum TurisTIC, two of NECSTouR projects took the stage. Mainly, it was the CHARM project with its bridge event to talk about “Technologies applied in rural areas: adding value to the tourist product”. But the Interreg MED STC project also took the opportunity to organise an online transferring workshop with Spanish stakeholders.

The forum has shared all videos, pictures and documents related to the event. They are available here.

CHARM Bridge Event

Blanca Cros, from the Catalan Tourism Board, lead partner of the project, took the stage to present the CHARM project to the assembly: partners, methods and the guide of promotional good practices. The project was created to fill the need to connect rural tourism with CCI technologies.

The main event was a session moderated by Ulf Sonntag, from the NIT (Institute for Tourism Research in Northern Europe). Different speakers - a mix of guests and members of the consortium - explained how technologies could help little villages to develop sustainable tourism projects to attract more visitors and help the local economy.

The goal of this session was to share experiences on how to apply new technologies, especially the ones related to the Cultural and Creative Industries (Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Gamification…) in order to add value to the tourism product and contribute to the development of the local economy in rural areas. For a concrete example of VR game used in tourism promotion, check Legends of Catalonia developed by Aftershare.tv.

Showcasing the complementarity of the CHARM partnership, Heini Niklas-Salminen urged to use all the digital tools available for rural destinations. Especially focusing where consumers are looking for information regarding the villages: the destination data used by Google. As Reinhard Lanner, from the Austria National Tourist Office, told during the event: “DMO should become management and innovation companies”.

The moderator concluded to the speakers as a “non-tech person”: “You do not only focus on the technology alone but also add the human touch. We need content, authenticity and people collaborating together”.

Relive the Bridge Event with the video replay.

The session was followed by a virtual networking session.

STC Workshop

Right before the CHARM Bridge Event, the Interreg MED Sustainable Tourism community held a workshop. Josep Rodriguez from the Barcelona Province (leader of the community and NECSTouR member) was moderating a session aiming to present tools towards sustainable tourism management created by three projects of the community:

- Joan Meseguer from Fundació Valenciaport and the HERITDATA project talked about data management regarding touristic frequentation

- Gersón Beltrán López from Play & go experience and the ALTERECO project did a presentation on gamification for the cities of Valencia and Gandia

- Alessandro Galli from the Global Footprint Network and DESTIMED project presented their ecotourism footprint calculator

Watch the workshop video (in Spanish)

The Forum TurisTIC is an annual event organized in Barcelona by EURECAT technology center, promoted by Generalitat de Catalunya, Barcelona City Council and Barcelona Provincial Council, aiming to connect innovation and technology with the tourism industry. Also present, Patrick Torrent, director of the Catalan Tourism Board and President of NECSTouR presented the StarTechTour project.

Read all press articles related to the event.