Tourists, a new target group for digital travel planners?

Transcription

1 Tourists, a new target group for digital travel planners? Deliverable no of the SEEMORE project Date of preparation of this document: Project Coordinator: CINESI Transport Consultants, Spain Mr. Maarten van Bemmelen mvanbemmelen@cinesi.es Phone Author of this document: Company: Trivector Author s name(s): Caroline Mattsson caroline.mattsson@trivector.se Phone: Start date of the project: April 2012 End date of the project: April 2015 Project website:

2 Legal disclaimer: The sole responsibility for the content of this document lies with the authors. It does not represent the opinion of the European Communities. The European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein. SEEMORE is co-funded by the Intelligent Energy Europe Programme of the European Commission and runs from April 2012 until April 2015.

3 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 About the SEEMORE project Project Summary The SEEMORE consortium Summary Revision and peer review history Glossary SEEMORE: changing travel behaviour of tourists Examples from tourist regions Madeira Travel planner in Mallorca Info kiosks in Limassol Conclusion List of Figures List of Tables References Tourists, a new target group for digital travel planners? page 3 / 18

4 1 ABOUT THE SEEMORE PROJECT 1.1 Project Summary SEEMORE shows that regional actors in 8 European coastal tourist regions are able to change the travel behaviour of visitors within their regions towards more sustainable transport modes. The main objectives of the project are to: - Increase visitors awareness of sustainable mobility; - Strengthen the co-operation between the mobility and tourism sectors; - Shift travel behaviour of tourists to sustainable transport modes; and - Communicate and transfer experiences to other tourist regions. Tourists, a new target group for digital travel planners? page 4 / 18

5 1.2 The SEEMORE consortium Project Partner Country CINESI Transport Consultancy (Coordinator) Mallorca Transports Consortium Trivector Traffic AB Association of Local Authorities Fyrbodal FGM-AMOR Austrian Mobility Research Common Europe Pomeranian Association Municipality of Choczewo Sustainable Development of Civil Society Club Province of Forlì-Cesena Central European Initiative Limassol Tourist Development and Promotion Co Ltd Stratagem Energy Ltd Horários do Funchal Public Transport Local Councils Association Spain Spain Sweden Sweden Austria Poland Poland Bulgaria Italy Italy Cyprus Cyprus Portugal Malta Tourists, a new target group for digital travel planners? page 5 / 18

6 2 SUMMARY Trips made by tourists are increasing rapidly in the western world, and especially trips by car. Despite this, not much is done to improve conditions to use public transport or other sustainable means of transport. SEEMORE (Sustainable and Energy Efficient Mobility Options in Tourist Regions in Europe) aims to change the travel behaviour among tourists and thus decrease CO2-emissions by increasing the awareness among tourists about sustainable mobility options in tourist regions and providing smart solutions for travelling. Future tourists will be more moveable and flexible than today s tourists, which claim higher standard on travel information. One way of doing this is providing up-to-date information that can be used before the trip and on-site by the tourists. The main difficulty is to join relevant data from various organisations and institutions, which creates the need for new co-operations. Also, there is an issue of who will own a product and up-date it regularly. So, based from what we know today, how can we provide a usable product to tourists as a target group and what should it contain? Examples from three tourist regions, Madeira (Portugal), Mallorca (Spain) and Limassol (Cyprus) are presented in this paper. This document is addressed to local and regional authorities at tourist destinations in Europe, mobility providers, hotels and leisure attractions. The paper is intended to disseminate the innovative approach to tourists mobility management developed within the SEEMORE project, thus facilitating and encouraging the transfer of best practices in this field. Tourists, a new target group for digital travel planners? page 6 / 18

7 3 REVISION AND PEER REVIEW HISTORY Version Number Date Comments Peer reviewed by (Name, Organisation) First draft sent for peer review by CEI N/A Peer reviewed version FGM-AMOR Some suggestions from the peer reviewer integrated in the document by the CEI N/A Final version released by Trivector Traffic AB N/A Table 1: Document revision and peer review history Tourists, a new target group for digital travel planners? page 7 / 18

8 4 GLOSSARY Abbreviations provided in this report Abbreviation Full name ITS GPS HF CTM Intelligent Transport Systems Global Positioning System Horários do Funchal Mallorca Transport Consortium Table 2: Abbreviations used Tourists, a new target group for digital travel planners? page 8 / 18

9 5 SEEMORE: CHANGING TRAVEL BEHAVIOUR OF TOURISTS Trips made by tourists are increasing rapidly in the western world, and especially trips by car. Tourist trips are an important part of sustainable and energy effective transports. Trips to leisure activities stand for 50% of the annual distance travelled in industrial countries and 3.2 of the global energy use (whereof 94% is related to transport) 1. The SEEMORE project (Sustainable and Energy Efficient Mobility Options in Tourist Regions in Europe, ), co-funded by the Intelligent Energy Europe Programme of the European Union, will show that regional actors in eight European coastal tourist regions are able to change the travel behaviour of visitors within their regions towards more sustainable transport modes. The participating regions are Mallorca (ES), Bohuslän (SE), Forlì-Cesena (IT), Dobrich (BG), Pomerania (PL), Madeira (PT), Limassol (CY) and Malta (MT). The objectives of SEEMORE are to improve the situation for tourists by increasing awareness of sustainable modes of transport and improving the range and service of alternatives to the private and rented car. The challenge is two folded: to offer better service on sustainable modes of transport and to communicate these options to the visitors. With regards to this, and in order to reach the specific objectives of the project, Mobility Management is the core of the actions to be implemented: 1. Increase the awareness among visitors about sustainable mobility options in tourist regions; 2. Increase cooperation between the sectors of tourism and mobility, and creation of new and improved energy-efficient mobility options for leisure travel in eight coastal regions throughout Europe; 3. Shift of travel behaviour of visitors towards more sustainable modes; 4. Widely share and communicate the SEEMORE experiences and outcomes with other actors in Europe, so that they start implementing similar actions targeting leisure travel. One of the challenges is how to target the visitors to inform them on sustainable mobility options. Potential visitors for a specific region is a very dispersed group difficult to target when they are at home. Once the visitors arrive to the tourist region it becomes easier to target them directly and this is the basis for the development of the information tools described below. Tourists of today are being more flexible and spontaneous during their holidays and they often want to discover places by themselves. This places higher demands on information of alternatives and services in order to increase the accessibility to attractive destinations in the tourist areas. 1 Gössling, S, Tourists, a new target group for digital travel planners? page 9 / 18

10 Information should be available at all times for the tourists, before the trip starts as well as during the trip. Comparing to the need of inhabitants in the area, the information for tourists should be more descriptive, e.g. information on how to use the public transport, where to find the bus stop or bike rental, and guides to cultural and nature destinations. When dealing with tourists one should think in terms of making their search for travel information as straightforward and easily accessible as possible. This opens up for promoting user-friendly modes of transport. In the same spirit, the travelling suggestions should also be easy, comfortable and offer value for money, enriching the visitors experience instead of just getting them from point A to point B. In the efforts of enriching the visitors experiences and bringing them closer to nature and local culture, ITS (Intelligent Transport System) is one basic element. It can be used both by improving the level of service and by making tourists aware of the possibilities sustainable mobility options give. The advantages with ITS from a tourist point of view are that the information is adaptable to the place and time where the tourist is in that moment. The tourist can thus have accurate travel information in any instant of the journey. Tourists, a new target group for digital travel planners? page 10 / 18

11 6 EXAMPLES FROM TOURIST REGIONS Within the SEEMORE project, new ideas are being developed and tested in three regions: a tourist guide, audio guide and travel planner in Madeira, a mobile travel planner in Mallorca, and info kiosks in Limassol. 6.1 Madeira In Madeira, the challenge is to make tourists use the public transport when discovering the island. To this end, three tools have been developed to fulfil the different needs of tourists: tourist guide, audio guide and travel planner. The tools can be combined or can be used separately. These three tools were all thought to be necessary in order to suit the very different groups of tourists that come to Madeira, from old people to younger ones and with very different experiences with technology. Having available and easy-to-use information at all times will give the tourist more security on the trip and reduce transport-related stress. Hopefully this will make more people use public transport for touristic reasons as well. The tools have all been implemented and are available for free downloading Tourist guide Horários do Funchal, the public transport company in Madeira, has developed a tourist guide that can be considered as a roadmap for tourists that wish to discover the island (downloadable at The aim has been to develop information so that tourists can be kept informed about public transport offers and how they can reach tourism hallmarks and attractive events using public transport. The guide can be used to plan the trip in advance and on-site to increase the knowledge about the places that are being visited. Every destination is marked with the bus number to reach the place. The tourist guide can be downloaded (and printed) from the website of the public transport company and will be available to use both online and offline. Versions are available for different types of digital devices. Figure 1: Example from Madeira`s tourist guide Tourists, a new target group for digital travel planners? page 11 / 18

12 6.1.2 Audio guide A complement to the tourist guide is the audio guide developed to provide tourists with detailed information about the places they are seeing on a specific route, as they visit the island on board of Madeira buses. The audio guide is a free application that can be downloaded from the website of Horários do Funchal ( It runs offline (GPS activation is necessary though) and is ready to install on smartphones (Android and ios). Within the frame of the SEEMORE project a pilot trip was developed, containing a description of milestones recommended for tourists to visit along the route Journey to the heart of the Island. Users just have to download the application and the trip, then put the headphones and enjoy. To reach tourists, Horários do Funchal attaches posters along the bus stops of the audio trip route and information can be found in the reception desk of hotels located in Funchal. Additional information is displayed as a banner in the public transport operator website as well as on other stakeholders websites. Figure 2: Banner for the audio guide on Madeira HF bus and HF mobile travel planner To complete the package of tourist information, a travel planner was launched (see: The reason was that tourists must also have the opportunity to know in every moment when and from where a bus leaves. HF bus is the website of Horários do Funchal adapted to mobile devices and HF mobile is the downloadable mobile application of the travel planner. Apart from the usual travel planning features, these apps also show the way to bus stops and suggest routes including recommended departure times. There is also the possibility to set an alarm to notify when the bus is nearly due to arrive at a designated bus stop, a highly appreciated feature among tourists that often are not fully aware of transport schedules. Tourists, a new target group for digital travel planners? page 12 / 18

13 6.2 Travel planner in Mallorca In Mallorca, the challenge is to make travelling easy and intuitive. A solution has been found in the development of an innovative mobile travel planner including route options. CTM App is a mobile travel planner designed by the Mallorca Transport Consortium (CTM) within the SEEMORE project. The objective is to create an application taking into account travellers needs, making it easy and intuitive to use. The application combines information on public transport from CTM and Google Transit to give the best service for the user. The application is available in six languages in order to offer maximum range among tourists. Apart from Spanish and Catalan, also English, German, French and Russian. A lot of effort has been put on reducing uncertainty for the traveller and thus attract tourists to the bus. Effort is also put on including information on destinations of interest for the tourist. Some examples of features that are included in the application in addition to the usual information on bus stops, bus lines, timetables, etc. are: possibility to track the bus, knowing where the bus is in every moment. This is a way of warning for potential problems, accidents or delays in the service; integration of information from the commercial and leisure fields around a specific bus stop, e.g. commercial areas, cultural centres, tourist attractions, points of interest. At the time of the preparation of this report, the Transport Consortium of Mallorca and the transport consultancy CINESI are working on the design of several tourist routes and trips over Mallorca that can be reached by public transport. Once the routes are defined, the intention is to link them with public transport lines and stops. Thus, the user of the application can obtain extra information, knowing which tourist routes and trips are linked to each line and stop, widening leisure options and attractions. One possible development will be to include information of the shortest route to the closest public transport stop, allowing to get informed on the spatial and temporal distance between the user s location and the stop. Many of the features developed for tourists are also usable for inhabitants in the area, both for regular everyday trips and for being a tourist in your neighbourhood. The application is available free of charge for android and ios (for web version, see: Figure 3: Features in the CTM application including Google Transit for planning a trip Tourists, a new target group for digital travel planners? page 13 / 18

14 In order to make the tool known, meetings are planned with different hotel associations to promote the application within the tourism sector and encourage its use among visitors. 6.3 Info kiosks in Limassol A more stationary information service is the one offered in Limassol. The challenge in Limassol is to provide up-to-date information to tourists 24 hours a day. A solution has been found by installing info kiosks at strategic places in the tourist area. Six information kiosks have been installed in high traffic areas in Limassol providing 24-hour up-todate information free of charge. The kiosks feature a 32-inch screen (1920 x 1080 pixels) where visitors can find information and videos promoting travelling in the area using sustainable mobility modes, such as bus timetables and routes, information on biking and walking routes, location of bus stops and bike rental stations, etc. The role of the info kiosks is purely informational. Relevant services can be promoted through the info kiosks but not sold at this point. The info kiosks are open for anyone but are mostly used by tourists. Information is provided in three languages: Greek, English and Russian. In the first year of their use (2013), they received a few million clicks. The results from monitoring the most requested information show that there is an increasing interest in knowing more about, for example, cycling routes. Included in the info kiosks is the new web travel planner Limassolbybus which enables tourists to plan a trip with both urban and interurban buses. The travel planner is also available for smartphones (Android and ios) and tablets but works only with online connection. The info kiosks operate with very low electricity consumption (regular power supply) offered by the local authorities of the several municipalities in the area of Limassol. Before installing the six info kiosks, an agreement was signed with each local authority about their support and cooperation in terms of providing the space and electricity for the operation of the kiosks. A Bluetooth application is also available for use by smartphones. Figure 4: Info kiosk in Limassol Tourists, a new target group for digital travel planners? page 14 / 18

15 7 CONCLUSION ITS is a very efficient way of providing travel information to tourists and with further developments in the area it will probably be standard in most tourist destinations. It is a complement to other mobility management measures that can play a large role in changing travel behaviour. The examples described above are all first hints of how to use ITS in communication with tourists, but improvements will be made in making the tools even more user friendly, and used. One important success factor is the partnership between various stakeholders, especially between transport and tourism professionals, to enable that data from both sectors are merged. Without this cooperation the added value for the tourist is less and the information will not be attractive. Tourists, a new target group for digital travel planners? page 15 / 18

16 8 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Example from Madeira`s tourist guide Figure 2: Banner for the audio guide on Madeira Figure 3: Features in the CTM application including Google Transit for planning a trip Figure 4: Info kiosk in Limassol Tourists, a new target group for digital travel planners? page 16 / 18

17 9 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Document revision and peer review history... 7 Table 2: Abbreviations used... 8 Tourists, a new target group for digital travel planners? page 17 / 18

18 10 REFERENCES Gössling, S., 2002, Global environmental consequences of tourism, Institute of Cultural Geography, Freiburg, Germany Acknowledgements Thanks for information provided about the digital tools: Lluís de Victoria and Raúl Medina, CINESI Transport Consultants, Spain; Claudio Mantero and André Freitas, Horários do Funchal, Madeira, Portugal; Maria Stylianou, Limassol Tourism Board, Cyprus. Tourists, a new target group for digital travel planners? page 18 / 18