How to innovate in travel and tourism
The guidebook offers actors from the tourism and travel industries lessons, trips and tricks based on the learnings from the X-Nordic Travel Contest – a two-year innovation program. More than 300 Nordic tourism companies and organizations have taken part in the X-Nordic Travel Contest and participated in workshops, hackathons, design sprints, surveys, mapping tools and testing tracks.
‘A Nordic Guidebook for Tourism Innovation’ is a practical guidebook showcasing how innovation happens within these industries and offering practical tools, innovation methods and inspiration for companies and tourism professionals.
More concretely, the guidebook dives into:
- The challenge of identifying problems that really matter
- Bridging the gap from headline problems to big ideas to real-world solutions
- Navigating the Nordic travel startup landscape
- Connecting forward-thinking startups with the tourism industry
The new guidebook offers many solutions and opportunities. Hanna Törmänen, Advisor at Nordic Innovation explains:
“The guidebook is both for tourism professionals and startups. We hope they can use a tested playbook to make innovation happen and find new ways to collaborate for strengthened sustainability and competitiveness," Hanna says and elaborates:
"For instance for destination managers, tourism boards, and organizations in the tourism landscape seeking ways to bring innovation into their work, the guidebook provides tools for identifying opportunities and testing solutions."
"For entrepreneurs and tech innovators who want to understand the opportunities and the challenges of entering the Nordic tourism market place, the guidebook provides learnings and tips from peer companies," Hanna adds.
Background
The X-Nordic Travel Contest (XNTC) is an initiative designed to strengthen and enhance the future sustainability and competitiveness of Nordic tourism. The XNTC project is part of Nordic Innovation’s Tourism in the Nordics initiative. Launched in 2018, this initiative aligns with Vision 2030 to foster innovation, collaboration, and sustainability across the region.
The X-Nordic Travel Contest went through four innovation phases:
- Phase 1: mapping and identifying the main challenges of Nordic tourism together with the Nordic tourism sector and industry
- Phase 2: inviting solutions and new thinking to address these challenges together with universities and Nordic startup ecosystems
- Phase 3: matching solutions with industry and challenge owners to test in collaboration with a view to solution viability, accessibility and scalability in real-world and cross Nordic contexts
- Phase 4: unfolding new solutions in a cross-Nordic context, and promoting tested solutions for further Nordic adoption and innovation
The X-Nordic Travel Contest is co-financed by the Nordic Council of Ministers.
