Technology for Tourism is an initiative for technology providers and tourism promoters to improve the visitor experience. You can sign-up to receive news and information about this initiative here.
This campaign is centred around the Malvern Hills in the United Kingdom, a unique tourist destination in a community renowned for technology development and innovation. The initiative is built on three pillars of activity:
• A network for technology providers and tourism promoters to share insights and best practice. This arrangement is designed to provide both the technology push and the market pull; a platform on which issues faced by the tourism industry can be addressed by the technologists and then evaluated by experienced operators. The aim of the network is to generate a dialogue that provides solutions to enhance the visitor experience at attractions, capture useful data about visitor behaviour, and then improve the tourism industry's analytical and planning capability in order to bring economic benefit to the stakeholders.
• A forum of open innovation and collaboration to learn about and develop new products & services applicable to the tourism industry. Members currently meet on an ad hoc basis at the Malvern Hills GeoCentre for a topical presentation, an update on any recent developments, and a chance to discuss things informally. This provides an opportunity to hear about new technologies or new issues facing the tourist industry, for new collaborations to be formed, and for potential joint projects to be discussed and planned. The aim is to embrace the tourism industry in the broadest sense, including museums, heritage sites, general attractions, hospitality services, transportation, accommodation, and sports & leisure facilities. If you'd like to come to a free forum meeting, please register here.
• A testbed for innovative new ideas to be deployed in and around the Malvern Hills, a tourist destination that draws over a million visitors per year to a range of indoor and outdoor attractions. New ideas need to be deployed and evaluated, and a key part of this initiative is to provide a testbed in a living dynamic tourist destination. The Malvern Hills is in an Area of Outstanding National Beauty with a heritage of tourism that had particular significance in Victorian England as a destination for the water cure. This initiative aims to facilitate the deployment of new technologies in the Malvern Hills and surrounding area, enabling reference data to be gathered that will help these products and services to be made ready for international markets. Of key significance is the diversity of the environment that the testbed offers:
• The Malvern Hills - an extensive rural area with limited broadband and patchy cellular network coverage; an ideal environment to test in an area where mobile data access may be limited and a range of weather conditions can be expected during the year.
• The Malverns - a community of small towns and villages in a countryside setting, with numerous indoor and outdoor attractions such as parks, churches, museums, stately homes and castles, an established showground, bed & breakfasts, hotels, and a limited rural transportation network of bus and rail.
• Worcester, Hereford, and Gloucester - three neighbouring mid-sized cities with cathedrals, enhanced infrastructure, and numerous attractions and facilities. These cities are also the administrative centres for the three counties that the Malvern Hills span.
News about this initiative:
Members of the Technology for Tourism Forum launch mobile walking app
Local software developer Mike Brooks and the Malvern Hills District Council launch a mobile walking app with walking tours of Malvern, Tenbury Wells and Upton-on-Severn.
Malvern Gazette, 30th May 2017 [Read more]
Silicon Canal white paper highlights Malvern's technology for tourism cluster
The Technology for Tourism initiative was highlighted in the recent white paper about the tech ecosystem of Greater Birmingham.
Silicon Canal, 25th May 2016 [Read more]
Promoting collaborative working in Malvern through the Technology for Tourism initiative
Dr Adrian Burden, Technical Director of Key IQ Ltd and founder of the Technology for Tourism initiative, presented to the European partners of the Smart Culture consortium during their visit to the Digital Humanities Hub at the University of Birmingham.
20th May 2015
SmartCulture in the West Midlands - Malvern Business Breakfast
This was an opportunity for those working in an ICT business, the Creative Industries or the Heritage and Tourism sectors to meet the SmartCulture project team from the University of Birmingham at the Wyche Innovation Centre in Malvern as part of their research into clusters in the digital heritage sector.
11th November 2014. [Report]
Using the Malvern Hills as a Technology for Tourism testbed
Dr Adrian Burden, Technical Director of Key IQ Ltd and founder of the Technology for Tourism initiative, presented at the Collaboration & Knowledge Exchange (CAKE) Meeting at the Digital Humanities Hub, University of Birmingham.
29th July 2014 [More details].
New app for Malvern Walks
Inspired by participating in the Technology for Tourism forum, Dan Wild from High Street Malvern captured some established walking trails on an Android App.
Worcester News, 19th March 2014 [Read more].
The Technology for Tourism Initiative in Malvern
Dr Adrian Burden, Technical Director of Key IQ Ltd and founder of the Technology for Tourism initiative, presented at the Touch Digital meeting at the University of Coventry.
21st March 2014
Have your say on revolutionary new map
News of the Virtual Malvern 3D Map prototype developed by the Virtual Experience Company with support from the Malvern Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the Malvern Hills District Council.
Malvern Observer, 29th January 2014 [Read more].
High-tec 3D map brings hills alive
Report about the Virtual Malvern 3D Map project following its showing at the Malvern Festival of Innovation.
Malvern Gazette, 18th November 2013 [Read more]
"Technology for Tourism" and the Technology for Tourism logo are trademarks of the Key IQ Ltd.