Industry Insights on Opportunities and Challenges of Digital Visitor Management in Times of Corona

The tourism sector is heavily affected by the COVID-19 crisis. While some destinations are cut off from international tourism streams, others suffer from overcrowding due to limited travel options and a significant increase in recreational day trips. At the same time, the pandemic accelerates and drives digital transformation processes in the tourism economy and provides opportunities for destinations to better manage visitor streams through digital tourism platforms such as Outdooractive. Drawing on insights from Outdooractive research projects in Germany, practical solutions to support holistic digital visitor management strategies based on data spaces and artificial intelligence technologies are presented. Experiences from Germany show that there is a clear need for collaboration, governance and open data leadership to provide effective solutions for sustainable visitor management.

You can see PPT slide here.

In cooperation with Dr. Dominik Huber

Martin Soutschek works as Director for R&D at Outdooractive GmbH, Germany. He has a background in geographic information science and spatial analysis. Besides his passion for outdoor tourism, geo technology and open data, he is interested in business model innovation and digital leadership. With almost 15 years of industry experience, developing and scaling the Outdooractive platform, he has faced many challenges, failed frequently, but also learnt that perseverance and persistence are required to overcome digital transformation challenges. His enthusiasm to never stop learning and sharing insights have resulted in publications and presentations at different tourism industry events and he is always looking for the next opportunity to explore and discover something new.