The EU DigiTOUR Project implemented from 2021 to 2024 is co-funded by the COSME Programme of the European Union, with the scope to support the digital transition of the European tourism SMEs lagging behind in the adoption and full exploitation of the digital technologies. The scheme was designed to help shape the next generation EU tourism SMEs to untap the potentials of the digital realm, enhancing cooperation in the tourism ecosystem for the development of new, innovative, and smart tourism solutions, products, services, skills, and new business models by the use of AI, IoT, VR and AR, and big data. The main objectives of the project include Up-skilling the digital competencies of the TOURISM SME-s overcoming the lack the necessary technical resources in their workforce to fully realise digital potentials Bridging the lack of knowledge in identifying required digital skills to limited staffing issues, restricting the time and effort which can be applied to learning new digital processes Boost capacity and skills to EU tourism SMEs’ improve their use of new digital technologies, resulting in new business models in tourism Accessing to funding to facilitate the implementation of digital technologies in their business, opening up new market potentials Facilitating cooperation within the tourism ecosystem, including public-private partnerships, and improve connectivity between tourism enterprises, tech companies and other start-ups; Boost capacity and skills to EU tourism SMEs’ improve their use of new digital technologies, resulting in new business models in tourism Stimulating knowledge sharing through specialized mentoring support through cooperation to boost innovation, enhance creativity and ideation. The main outputs of the project include: The digital transformation hackathons launch and delivery The development of the EU DigiTOUR transformation program DigiTOUR Transformational Enabler Mapping the EU Digital transformation state of art in the tourism sector and capacity building.
