+ BACKGROUND, CHALLENGES AND OBJECTIVES
Nicholas Negroponte predicted in his book Being Digital that the smallest unit of matter, the atom, would be replaced by the bit which consist of 0’s and 1’s. You could say that this prediction has already come true because now in 2022, we already live in a digital universe. The type of smart city we'll be discussing today is the smart tourism city.
First, it's important for us to understand what a smart city is and what smart tourism is.
A “smart city” delivers smart city services at any time and from any location. It does this, based on a smart city infrastructure created with smart city technologies that enhance the city's competitiveness and quality of life.
Meanwhile, “smart tourism” refers to the provision of real-time, customized services for domestic and overseas visitors via the use of cutting-edge information and communication technology (ICT). This can be considered the next generation of tourism, characterized by high value-added creation through innovation in the tourism content ecosystem and industrial structure.
Now that we have a grasp on smart cities and smart tourism, what exactly is a smart tourism city? Let's take a look at how the smart tourism city, which embodies these two concepts, has evolved over the past 20 years.
The concept of a city employing information and communication technology evolved from a digital city to a U-City and, more recently, into a smart tourism city.
The objective has evolved from simply establishing cyberspace for residents to creating a smart tourism environment for the realization of shared values. This involves the use of artificial intelligence and big data, as well as cutting-edge technologies like blockchain and VR/AR.
With the passage of time, focus has shifted from providers to users, and from infrastructure to service. That's why the involvement of diverse stakeholders has become more and more important to realize this initiative.
Based on this context, we can define a smart tourism city as an “innovative tourist destination that guarantees sustainable development which ultimately improves the quality of life of residents by promoting and enhancing tourists’ experiences and interactions.”
As the concept of smart tourism grows in importance, many cities around the world are attempting to become leading smart tourism cities. Consequently, a need arose for the development of indicators that could quantitatively determine the level of smart tourism cities.
+ ACTIONS AND IMPLEMENTATION
In 2020, the STO created the "Smart Tourism City Competitiveness Index" in collaboration with Kyunghee University's Smart Tourism Research Center. This index evaluates smart tourism cities by analyzing each city's tourism and urban competitiveness.
The Smart Tourism Competitiveness City Index is made up of five indicators: attractiveness, accessibility, digital preparedness, sustainability, and cooperative partnership.
For this index, the five main competitiveness indicators are treated as sectors, which are then divided into 18 categories and 42 sub-indicators. An ideal smart tourism city should be able to expand and develop in harmony with these five sectors through organic interaction, and the indicators are designed to reflect this spirit as well.
So far, we've discussed what a smart tourism city is and the competitiveness metrics that we can use to evaluate it. Now, using the five key indicators, let's look over smart tourism city features that were promoted or will be promoted by the STO. First, let’s go over smart appeal and attractiveness.
VR and AR are important technologies for smart tourism. We created a 360-degree VR format video in which a K-pop star (Cha Eun-woo) guides visitors through local sites in Seoul based on the three themes of “colorful,” “retro/newtro,” and “activities.” We distributed this through YouTube and SNS, getting a lot of positive feedback both at home and abroad.
The next case illustrates the second indicator of accessibility, which is smart convenience.
The STO is providing tourism information through the web, apps, and social media. The STO website can be viewed in eight different languages, the app in five languages, and the social media platforms in four languages. This provides potential travelers across the world with a wide range of options.
Through our Instagram account, which is getting a lot of attention lately, we're providing inspiration for Seoul travel. We're also sharing tourism information to potential travelers all over the world through live streaming.
Southeast Asia, India, and the US are the primary target markets for Visit Seoul. Travel trends often begin with YouTube or social media serving as inspiration for travel to different destinations. As a result, the relevance of digital marketing via YouTube or social media is growing in the eyes of DMOs.
Here's a case of the third indicator, digital preparedness.
Digital tourism information boards, self-check-in services, robot concierges, chatbots, and AI speakers are examples of smart services. Of course, many other digital services are also available, but let’s focus on the chatbot service today.
A chatbot is a tool that communicates with users over a message interface to offer information or services. The Visit Seoul app uses NLU technology to provide a conversational AI chatbot service that learns from user inquiries and improves over time on its own.
Its UI has been designed so that it's easy for users to engage in dialogue with the Visit Seoul character.
Next, let me show you an example of the fourth indicator, sustainability and tourism safety.
Tourists' worries about safety will undoubtedly persist when traveling becomes more common as the pandemic subsides. But what if you could determine the amount of congestion in a place that I'm visiting in real time or based on past data?
Beginning in the fourth quarter of the year 2022, the STO intends to provide residents and visitors with real-time information such as congestion and density of popular Seoul locations so that they may travel worry-free.
Now here's an example of the fifth indicator, smart tourism governance through cooperative partnerships.
Since 2016, the city of Seoul and the STO have promoted efforts to find and develop more than 12 new tourism startups. Every year, we uncover new and distinctive services in the tourism industry, and I believe this will make a significant contribution to renewing the tourism environment in the future.
Starting in 2021, we have established a space for tourism startups in the Seoul Tourism Plaza. We have selected 15 resident companies and 68 partner companies to provide them with office space, as well as training, consulting, and networking services.
So far, we've examined numerous smart tourism city initiatives that have been started or are scheduled to be promoted by the STO. We mostly focused on five main indicators: attractiveness, accessibility, digital preparedness, sustainability, and cooperative partnership.
As mentioned before, focus is shifting from providers to users, and from infrastructure to service. Valuing the involvement of diverse stakeholders will ensure the type of future tourism that we envision. A smart tourism city is the most efficient way to accomplish such transformation.
In this regard, hospitality, one of the most essential elements of tourism, shouldn't be overlooked while establishing a smart tourism city. We also shouldn't forget about the importance of people by becoming too preoccupied with digitalization. Finally, the role of data in driving smart tourism cities simply can't be underestimated.
+ OUTCOMES AND IMPACTS
For the last nine years, since 2010 to 2019, the number of foreign visitors to Seoul had increased from 7million (7,065,000) to 13 million (13,372,000), increasing about 189%.
According to the Seoul Tourism Research, since 2015 to 2019, the overall satisfaction of Seoul tourism had increased from 3.91 to 4.32, an increase of 110%. The revisitation rate to Seoul had also risen from 47.9% to 50.2%, an increase of 105%.
*The number of global tourists since 2020 is not included due to the decline in tourism worldwide due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
+ REPLICABILITY AND SCALABILITY
Start by creating an official website of the city and upload information related to the city’s tourism. Create social media channels such as facebook, youtube, and instagram to promote the contents in the website.
Creating online visual image contents, producing real-time information, and communicating constantly with the visitors is crucial in operating the social media channels.
When the platform and the social media channels are numerically stable, start using new technologies such as VR or chatbots, and start collaborating with celebrities or well known global brands to draw more attention and to gain more followers and visitors.
+ BUDGET AMOUNT
• Budget of Initiative
- Website: USD 1,630,132(KRW 2,140,364)
- Social Network: USD 1,081,492(KRW 1,420,000)
• Internal Resources
- Smart Tourism Team(13 people)
• Other Resources
- VR/AR, NLU(Natural Language Understanding), Bigdata
+ BUDGET SOURCE
