The second edition of The Journey, a 5-month program for startups to pilot innovative solutions that can be applied in addressing travel and tourism players challenges. started this week, with the support of Turismo de Portugal in partnership with Grupo Barraqueiro, Geostar, Pestana Hotel Group, SATA Azores Airlines and NOS.
The program is focusing on four different areas:
- Personalize the Customer Journey – Leveraging Big Data sources and use of Predictive Analytics (Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Natural Language Processing).
- Seamless Traveling Experience – Reducing points of friction (e.g. check-in) and the use of Blockchain for payments, loyalty, supply chain and contracts.
- Customer Care – Mobile strategy using multiplatform interactions to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.
- Conscious Travel – Solutions to position The Journey partners as key actors for the sustainability of destinations.
According to Luís Araújo, President of Turismo de Portugal, “We want to turn Portugal into the center of innovation for tourism”. Pedro Rocha Vieira, Co-founder and CEO at Beta-i, says that “the tourism is one of the most important sectors in the Portuguese economy and the one that has been growing the most”, adding that “the goal is to achieve the 80 million stays a year until 2027, but for that to happen the industry has to be based on innovation processes”.
Applications are open until June 15, 2018, so if you have a solution regarding hospitality, travel (agency) services, tours & activities and air & ground transportation, go for it.