Smart solutions for smarter tourism
The sun laughs from the blue sky, the temperatures are slightly below zero, a bright white landscape, well-groomed slopes and cross-country ski trails entice you outdoors. Winter fans are thrilled and flock to wonderful winter world.
On such days, access roads and parking lots are simply not enough, especially in the winter sports strongholds, to provide all guests with individual and unadulterated winter enjoyment. Arriving on site and encountering restrictions, bans and barriers, queuing at ticket counters and being delayed getting onto the slopes creates frustration - and that's what lift and trail operators want to spare guests. In addition, it is important to avoid overcrowding in certain places so as not to place an excessive burden on the citizens living there.
The AIR (AI-based Recommender for Sustainable Tourism) project aims to design digital visitor management. Those responsible are working on smart solutions to inform people digitally and alert them at an early stage when and where high visitor volumes are developing and to enable them in good time to recognize and head for less heavily visited places.
In this context, "artificial intelligence" algorithms play an important role in forecasting and generating recommendations. The project is being funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection from the "AI Lighthouses" program with a total of around 3 million euros.