Center of Expertise for Tourism TravelGate Finland 7'4'2005

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Center of Expertise for Tourism TravelGate
Finland 7.4.2005
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Problem area

• Tourism is an information based business
• Tourists are not able to test the product in
  advance
• ? Tourism strongly depends on information
  flow
• Tourism is a networked industry
• A high number of diverse actors
• Business is highly fragmented
• A great variety of Information Systems
• Services and data in different formats

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Problem area

• As a customer
• Impossible to get all current information from
  one portal
• Reservation package of services is unthinkable
• As a tourism industry
• Interoperability and data transfer between
  different actors is difficult to implement
• Maintaining information to multiple sources
  wastes resources
• Marketing and up to date distributing tourism
  services in Internet is troublesome without
  reliable channel

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Interoperability problem
Source Harmonise Overview, Christoph Herzog 2005
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Interoperability objectives

• Interoperability means
• The ability to exchange information
• The ability to interact in order to execute
  market procesess
• Interoperability requires
• Interconnectivity (technical interoperability)
• Common understanding of available information and
  services
• Source Wolfram Höpken,eca 2004

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TravelGate Finlands solution

• The project aims to create a national model to
  exchange content and services
• The main objective is to define standards and
  guidelines to enable interoperability between
  different destination marketing organisations
• To create a model of integrating national,
  regional and local information to provide
  benefits to both the consumer and the tourism
  industry.

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Background of project

• Composed of research project (administered by the
  Institute/University of Joensuu) and three
  business projects by Go Finland Ltd, Tietotalo
  Ltd and Karttaikkuna Ltd
• The project is funded by Tekes, the National
  Technology Agency of Finland, from the FENIX
  programme to 1.9.2004 - 30.6.2005.
• International co-operation with Austrian
  eCommerce Competense Center (ec3) through
  Harmonise and Harmo-Ten projects

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The Scope

• The first phase of the project (September
  2004-June 2005) concentrates on accommodation and
  capacity management (cottages, hotels) and
  activities
• The project utilizes also existing models and
  interfaces, to examine best practices
• The second phase (June 2005-August 2006)
  concentrate to the further implement these areas
  in practice and
• Defines three new interfaces
• Nature Tourism Product
• Point of Interest/Sightseeing
• Events

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Outcomes

• TravelGate Finland model gives broader
  distribution and more effective marketing means
  for tourism products.
• All the interface libraries made in the project
  will be freely available to the benefit of the
  industry and academics.
• The results of the projects will be published for
  free use at http//travelgate.joensuu.fi

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Products

• XML interface library and documentation for
  tourism content
• XML interface for reservation systems integration
• XML interface for mobile services
• Concept table and translation table for the
  electronic exchange of tourism data
• Functioning Business Web (business model) for
  electronic distribution of tourist information
  and products
• Reports of research findings concerning systems
  integration

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Current state

• Best practices and benchmarking phase completed
  and document
• International co-operation reached, two
  significant membership established (Travel
  Technology Initiative, Harmo-Ten)
• National consortium behind the project build, 11
  participants
• First drafts of interfaces and concept libraries
  written, not published yet
• Application for second phase funding from TEKES
  Fenix-program

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TravelGate Finland staff

• Director of Project
• Ulla Turtiainen
• 358 (0)15 511 7755
• ulla.turtiainen_at_joensuu.fi
• Project Manager
• Teemu Hakolahti
• 358 (0)50 405 9578
• teemu.hakolahti_at_joensuu.fi
• Researcher
• Ilkka Kauppinen
• 358 (0)50 562 0638
• ilkka.kauppinen_at_joensuu.fi
• http//travelgate.joensuu.fi