Partners

1. Catalan Tourist Board – Spain (Catalonia)

The Catalan Tourist Board (CTB) is the official body of the Government of Catalonia in charge of promoting and supporting marketing of Catalonia’s tourist resources. Its purpose is to consolidate the image of the destination as a diverse top-range tourist destination.

The CTB is recognized by Catalan tourism sector, as the major actor to promote and marketing tourism. With more than 20 years of experience, it knows how in boosting Catalonia, as a tourist destination. A strategic goal of the CTB is to work out an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable tourist model for Catalonia. The CTB has a presence in more than 30 countries around the world through its Network of Offices Abroad.

The CTB runs the entrepreneurship support program “StarTechTour” formed by the StarTechTour Hackathon (selection of innovative ideas) and the StarTechTour Challenge (acceleration of proposals that improve the tourist experience in Catalonia, based on technology, responding to specific challenges raised by corporations of the sector).

2. Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Services and Navigation – Spain (Catalonia)

The Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Services and Navigation (BCC) was created in 1886 to promote and defend the general interests of its members and work for the common good of commerce, industry, and the shipping sector. Today, it is a public law corporation that provides services to the business community, representing more than 39.000 member companies located in the Catalan’s capital district (Barcelonès). Its main objective is to support and promote business competitiveness and sustainable local development.

In the field of tourism, the BCC offers diagnosis, consulting and services concerning innovation, digitalisation, marketing and business strategy, apart from related workshops and training courses. Together with the Barcelona City Council and the Barcelona Promotion Foundation it constitutes the Turisme de Barcelona Consortium, the city’s DMO.

Through its digital transformation portal, the BCC provides all necessary services and means to SMEs to accelerate their digitalisation process and connects them to technology providers. The newly established Digital Hub located within the Chamber’s installations furthermore offers the perfect physical and online infrastructure to push for business digitalisation.

3. PARIS&CO – France

Paris&Co Tourisme is a programme to stimulate innovation in the tourist sector including the world’s first incubator that is dedicated to this sector. Created in 2013 with the support of the City of Paris, Paris&Co Tourisme (formerly known as the Welcome City Lab) has incubated and coached more than 160 startups with a success rate of 85% to date.

4. ARCTUR DOO – Slovenia

Arctur is a Research & Development oriented SME, active in the field of ICT and one of the main commercial suppliers of HPC (High Performance Computing) services and solutions for SMEs in Central and Eastern Europe.

Arctur has initiated and leads the Tourism 4.0 initiative that is unlocking the innovation potential through collaboration between all stakeholders (more than 190 stakeholders are engaged) in the smart tourism ecosystem to co-create enriched experiences with the help of the key enabling technologies from Industry 4.0.

The TOURBIT Digital Readiness Index is based on its own AAT self-diagnosis tool on SMEs digital maturity.

5. Cluster hospitality.brussels hosted by hub.brussels – Belgium

The hospitaly cluster created by the Brussels agency for business support hub.brussels, brings together all stakeholders (both small and large) in the Tourism, Events and Culture sector is a novel means of boosting economic development and growth.

The cluster supports Tourism SMEs in Belgium to integrate digitalization and digital technologies into their business strategy. It develops a Special Plan for Entrepreneurship in Brussels-Capital Region, which includes increased support to businesses active in the retail and hospitality sector to make the most of digital technologies for selling their products and services.

6. Iceland Tourism Cluster – Iceland

The Iceland Tourism Cluster (ITC) promotes competitiveness and value creation within the Icelandic tourism Industry and develops a co-operating forum for different stakeholders where the main focus is on linking them together and opening up for interactions.

It represents several agents from the tourism value chain, like travel agents, tour operators, hotels, attractions and activities, restaurants, airlines, public relations, IT solutions, etc.

It is part of the Nordic TravelTech Network (how innovation and sustainable growth in tourism and travel technology can be accelerated through strategic cooperation) and runs the Startup Tourism: a 10-week business accelerator made for entrepreneurs in tourism in Iceland.

7. Lapland University of Applied Sciences – Finland

The Lapland University of Applied Sciences (Lapland UAS) is a core member of Lapland Tourism Ecosystem run by the Regional Government of Lapland (Smart and Sustainable Arctic Tourism Cluster).

The Lapland UAS experts conduct research that develops and applies multidisciplinary theory and participates in the responsible development of the tourism Industry.

8. NEST – Tourism Innovation Center – Portugal

NEST is a Tourism Innovation Center in Portugal aiming at supporting SMEs in their digitization process. It improves the use of the technological solutions for problem solving in tourism and links technological providers and technological needs of tourism for effective development.

NEST develops AI applied to the tourism sector and has a wide network with knowledge institutes, researchers and public entities, having access to technology-testing spaces.