Open Data in Tourism
New technologies are rapidly changing the tourism industry. Data are central assets in management and marketing of tourism destinations and businesses. Data driven services became a prominent tool for tourists to plan their trips. The study "Utilizing open data in tourism" predicts great potential for Open Data to increase innovations and destination management. Several actors already use Open Data to provide services in the tourism industry, e.g. the open service called Helsinki Region Infoshare from the city of Helsinki. Malta and Montenegro, for example, are providing data sets on tourist expenditure, hotels, accommodation, restaurants, events, bicycle stations, heritage sites, or beaches.
But not only government organisations and companies use Open Data in tourism. User-generated content, such as reviews and comments spread via social networking services, supports Tourists' decision making. The study "You will like it!" analyses user generated Open Data to predict tourists' perception of sights or attractions. Thereby they are contributing to the process of predicting tourists' future preferences, what has potential implications and benefits for the tourism industry.
Engage in the discourse of Open data in tourism, for example on 18 July: the meeting "Linked Open Data im Tourismus"for destination marketing organizations (DMOs) takes place in Innsbruck to discuss possibilities and prerequisites for using Open Data in tourism. If you rather try out using Open Data to plan your next weekend trip, visit the European Data Portal featured data article on "Use Open Data to prepare your holiday trip".