Competitiveness through innovations in tourism and experience management
Tourism industry is today globally defined in the wider context of the experience economy. Experience management, electronic business and service design are areas of research and development activities, which provide new methodologies for the renewal of business models and the generation of new branch-breaking service innovations.
Finland holds state-of-the-art expertise in experience management, which is increasingly utilized by enterprises belonging to the experience cluster.
Tourism and Experience Management is one of the 13 Clusters of Expertise chosen for the national Centre of Expertise Programme (>> OSKE). The programme concentrates on exploiting international top-level expertise to fully utilize the tourism potential and strengths in different regions.
Resources for the innovation programme are provided by >> the Ministry of Employment and Economy together with regional partners comprising municipalities and regional councils.
Tourism and Experience Management Cluster Programme is operated by five Centres of Expertise focusing on complementary fields of expertise. One of the principal objectives is to nationally intensify the transfer of knowledge between regions and research centres in Finland. Thus, the Competence Cluster model intensifies the co-operation between Centres of Expertise and enables the more efficient use of national resources scattered in different regions.
Vision
Our vision is that in 2020, Finland will be a top tourism destination in Europe providing easy access and premium-quality year-round services. The tourism offer is based on unspoiled natural landscapes and unique Finnish culture. In this way, the Finnish tourism industry will be able to build sustainable destinations and provide meaningful experiences for both business and pleasure.
Combining tourism and creative industries is cool
Although experience has become an everyday buzzword, most businesses do not know how to change the core business processes to render customer experiences. However, understanding the business logic behind the experience economy brings a significant competitive edge.
Tourism and Experience Management Competence Cluster links tourism with creative industries such as design, digital content production as well as entertainment and cultural production. Coupled with modern technology, experience management is a unique opportunity to create innovative business models for the benefit of tourism internationally.
Creative product development
A holistic multi-sector approach is a key for successful experience product development. We strongly believe that the best innovations are created by exploiting the broadest creative potential and breaking the boundaries between industries.
Tourism and Experience Management Competence Cluster is especially interested in innovations which interlink ICT, experience management and service design.
Foresight research in customer behaviour, technological advances, globalisation, as well as the breakthrough of experience and transformation economies form the basis for customer-oriented innovations.
In addition, we make efficient use of the innovation potential in other cluster programmes such as >> Ubiquitous Computing, >> Health and Well-being, >> Digibusiness and >> Food Development.
Credibility through networking
Tourism and Experience Management Cluster Programme integrates the expertise of the leading tourism and experience management centres of research and innovation in Finland.
The main resources will be allocated to regional, national, international and virtual destination business networks comprised of businesses, universities and public sector actors under specific areas.
The networks function as Experience Labs, an adaptation of the >> Living Lab model for the specific r&d&i needs of the tourism and experience management sector, where innovations are co-created with real users, i.e. tourists, in real life environments.
The cluster offers tested methodologies in product development, managing customer relationships, distributing interactive content through the Internet and designing services. These knowledge-intensive business services will be provided for enterprises participating in Experience Labs.
We are committed to an integrated and long-term development and follow-up of the development processes in the Experience Labs for the benefit of the tourism business. Concentrating on tourist centres and theme-based services is supported by the national tourism strategy. Enhanced by the world-class technological know-how Finland already has, tourism and experience management will be taken to a new level.
Contrasts through versatility
The Experience Labs of our cluster are as varied as is the nature of our country of four seasons. Covering the whole country from north to south and from west to east including both urban and rural areas, the networks present a diverse range of expertise from cultural history to modern city culture.
The Experience Labs make use of each other’s special expertise, and thus, benefit from each other’s results.