Traveltech for Scotland — Weeknote 5 (First of 2021)

Photo credits to Michael Watson

Traveltech for Scotland is back with a weeknote updating you on everything that is going on. After the holidays and a busy few weeks back, we have started Quarter 3 with a renewed focus and excitement for things to come. In the last few weeks, we have continued to expand our reach, building international connections, strengthening our relationships, and developing various projects we are working on.

This Quarter we are building momentum towards a self-sustaining, resilient community. Take a look at what has kept us busy:

What have we done in the last few weeks?

We have had various conversations with traveltech and tourism organisations including:

• Open Transport on the adoption of Open Standards for sharing data across the transport and mobility sector to establish an infrastructure currently made out of multiple competing components.
• Expedia Group, who have recently joined our Traveltech Directory.
• Green tourism on how we can support individual traveltech businesses to think about their own green tourism endeavours.
• Hidden Trax about their pivot from walking tours to podcast and content creation focused on showcasing authentic local businesses.
• Pour about using the data from their app to provide insights to the businesses they work with. It is fantastic to see a new company building in data first!
• Context25 and Vocalista — two very early-stage businesses with fantastic ideas and potential.
• TourOpp Go! — a company based in Florida providing automated SMS and Whatsapp messages for Tour and activity operators.
• Zudu, a digital agency and the first Scottish based company to offer a tailored digital marketing strategy to help UK companies break into the Chinese market.
• Kyoka Global, also established experts in the Chinese Market, and showcasing a new smartphone app called Shake to Win, allowing businesses to list their travel and tourism products and services for Chinese customers and engage with them in innovative ways.

We have spoken to some of the team at Scotland Europa about ways we can raise the reputation of Scottish traveltech across Europe and further afield.

We have had valuable conversations with Ian Cumming and Maria Stoyanova of Travel Massive about community building.

The Traveltech Directory has been met with enthusiasm and continues to grow. We have presented the directory to various visitor groups, including adventure tourism businesses, and visitor attractions. We’re collaborating with VisitScotland to add more booking platforms and OTA’s. Our new additions include Expedia, Nitro, and Closed Door Security. If you are not represented and you want to be, please fill out this form.

2021 has also kicked off with several successful events.

• On January 27th we held an event with CodeClan, looking at developing technology skills for the future in the tourism and hospitality sector. Read about the event here.
• On January 28th we met the Edinburgh chapter of the Travel Massive Community and discussed the role of communities. Josh introduced Traveltech for Scotland, and we presented one of the entrepreneurs in our community — Elaine Ford of Electrek Explorer. Read more about the event here.
• Lesley attended a webinar organised by Scotland Europa on the role of data for tourism recovery out of COVID-19 which led to some new connections including Spain’s Andalucia Lab, an innovation-driven traveltech and tourism community engaging in work that resonates with our own projects and aims.
• Via Interface, in partnership with Censis and Traveltech for Scotland, with experts also from Wilderness Sensors and EDINA Lesley hosted a round table for tourism groups across Scotland on managing visitors and IoT. The event highlighted several challenges around data pertinent to the tourism sector right now. This event has generated a number of activities and interesting conversations around IoT, sensors, data and Smart Buildings which we’ll share more on soon.

What have we learnt?

• We are continually working on streamlining and narrowing down our focus so that our energy, time, and expertise are spent on the most important things necessary for our community.
• We are looking at new ways to support early-stage and start-up businesses in their introductions to and growth within the traveltech sector and community.
• We are continually developing mechanisms for bringing businesses together and in conversations in ways which are productive and also self-sustaining
• We are focused on signposting learning, developments, and skills opportunities for our community.

What’s coming up?

• We have a variety of exciting things in the works for this quarter and the next
• This month we are launching our ‘Visualise the Future’ project. We are commissioning artists to create a digitally produced piece of work envisioning the next 20 years in traveltech. If you or someone you know would be interested check out the call here.
• Our Community Platform is close to going live with feedback from our industry colleagues.
• Our Online Course is continually being developed, and is heading towards launch.

Thank you for reading this weeknote and for staying up to date with Traveltech for Scotland. To stay updated on our progress, the launch of our community platform and future events, sign up for our mailing list. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.