Project 27: Sustainable tourism

Background and motivation

A key to downtown is a GPS application operating on the map interface. A key to downtown as a sustainable tourism application is not trying to restrict the travelling, no matter if you are on the leisure or business trip. A key to downtown gives alternatives during the trip or during a leisure time whatsoever. The point is that the alternative is vivid, serious, true, useful, interesting and memorable. This is a mobile concept which refers to the idea of sustainability in our environment. It could also teach green ideas or how to lessen the waste. But our mobile service helps the user find out experiences, new ideas, new points of view in the compact city space and in the neighbourghood. A key to to downtown can be settled in anybody's hometown. This means that even a bafefoot inhabitant will follow the routes made by Citynomad. After one route there will be an urge to gather even more of them and on the leisure or business trip one may find Key to downtown route there and experience it. One can be a tourist in the hometown. Key to downtown consists of thematic routes. Each includes five to ten points of interest (POI). The concept has several basic ideas: - themes according to a customer segments - cross-media content - a story told within a route - games and quizes during / during and after the route - GPS assisted - map interface. Further development - social media - customer loyalty trough web service - route trackers - customer generated content - count the environmental footstep of the route and save it In the future there may be links to the local shops, handicrafts, museums, galleries, cafes, restaurants, pubs, venues etc. to point out to pop in during the route. Citynomadi is a company that has created a format for the Key to downtown application. The format consists of the modules that can be replaced according to a new order in the another Key to downtown route. The modules have a unique content, though. This means, that the routes are all unique. The demo idea of A Key to Downtown is to lead the goer through the predescribed route from POI to POI. The demo will be a detective story or alternatively another tale in the Tampere city.

Project goal

Create mobile tool that helps people in a tourist destination to follow a sustainable tourist path. The tourist need information and even small control of tourist paths will help in building the destinations more sustainable.

Initial requirements

The tourist destination (e.g. Tampere) has ready made tourist content.
Tourists get information about the destinations + public transportation (or bikes) in a convenient way (to enable the choices to use sustainable travel).
There should be tools to create sustainable tourists experiences in a destination.

Desired student skills/competencies/team size

Software development (2 persons)
Usability and testing (1 person)
Information system integration (2 person)
Environmental policy, regional development and sociology (2-4 persons)
Team leader (1 person)
Team size: 6 persons

Development tools, environments and standards

Location toolkits (Java JSR, Nokia Map POI’s) Linking to Nokia Maps and Ovi service provided as needed

Deliverables and time period

Demo SW of tourist routes in a given destinations Combination of a SW prototype and real trial content

Interaction between stakeholder and project team

Weekly meetings, additional meetings with 3rd party travel industry players (regional destination stakeholders)

Support (supervision & financial)

Nokia will organise technical support and will hold agile development camps Travel industry players (SME’s) will be available for in depth case support Joint development periods (SCURM agile development method). Possibility to collaborate with international NGO’s (WWF, Conservation International, UNESCO)

Main contact persons with email address

Merja Taipaleenmäki, Citynomadi, merja.taipaleenmaki@gmail.com
Mona Ratalahti, Citynomadi, mona.ratalahti@gmail.com
Juha Kaario, NRC Tampere, juha.kaario@nokia.com
Please also inform Demola Staff when you contact the company contact person

References (pubs, books, links, …) UNWTO: “Climate Change and Tourism 2007”