Indra develops a smart tourism management platform for the Rías Baixas in Galicia

There are more than 27,000 tourism and leisure companies in the Spanish province of Pontevedra and from now on they can all access a smart technology platform to manage their resources and design customized offers based on tourists' experiences. Sector professionals and entrepreneurs will be able to log in via an extranet to edit information, market products and generate social events from anywhere, and tourists will be able to access a comprehensive destination service in real time, adapted to their own interests and needs.

The platform includes a new portal for promoting and marketing the Rías Baixas tourist destination (www.turismoriasbaixas.com), which the consulting and technology multinational Indra is currently developing to the specifications of the Pontevedra authorities and the EOI business school. The initiative is part of the "Pontevedra, Destiño Intelixente" (Pontevedra, Smart Destination) project, a pilot experience in Spain which is funded by the European Union and is aimed at upgrading and improving the competitiveness of the tourism sector through the use of ICTs.

Its key differential value compared with other tourism portals is its capacity to "understand" what travelers really need or want. The technology platform designed by Indra integrates the knowledge it gathers about users, as they browse through the portal, with the details, information and services offered. This is achieved in two ways: latest-generation CXM (Customer eXperience Management) technologies, which store the data that tourists generate as they browse and customize the portal and mobile apps; and the use of business analytics tools to exploit all the information obtained from tourists' interaction with sector professionals (such as level of interest in content and services, most popular resources, most attractive tourist packages, etc.).

Self-management of information and online reputation

Another great novelty is the inclusion of a tourism resource management system so that the owners of companies or establishments (agencies, hotels, hostels, restaurants, wine cellars, etc.) can maintain and update their information about availability, special promotions, last-minute offers, etc. directly on the portal. This information will also be relayed automatically and in real time to their partner reservation and marketing platforms. There is also a tool that allows professionals to publish information on social media sites and view the online reputation of their establishments and companies.

Mobility and augmented reality will also be features of the platform portal. In addition to facilitating access to contents through all kinds of mobile devices, (PC, tablet, smartphone), three specific mobile apps will shortly be rolled out. One will optimize and facilitate the consultation and use of the resources and services on the portal itself; another, based on augmented reality technology, will allow travelers to explore and learn about the resources in the Rías Baixas before they arrive; and a third one will let professionals manage information about their establishments from anywhere. Likewise, all of the tourism resources in the portal - more than 5,000 in total - are georeferenced to facilitate their location through GPS devices or smartphone apps.

The rollout of this platform will provide tourists with high-quality information, and since there is a personal space for saving details and recording opinions about interesting resources it will help them plan their journeys better. They will also be able to take advantage of all the benefits offered by complete integration with mobile devices, and they will be able to analyze in a single space tourism information and details about establishments (comprehensive destination service) presented in a standard format.

This project demonstrates Indra's interest in developing comprehensive tourism solutions (smart tourism) to address the needs of public administrations and citizens and facilitate the construction of tourism services. In addition to this latest project, the company's smart value proposition includes Sofia2, a key proprietary solution for managing the Internet of Things (IoT) and big data.

The Rías Baixas area is currently the fifth most popular tourist destination in Spain, attracting nearly 2 million visitors a year and generating approximately 40,000 direct and indirect jobs.

Indra

Indra, chaired by Javier Monzón, is one of the world's largest consultancy and technology multinationals, a leader in Europe and Latin America and is expanding in other emerging economies. Innovation is the cornerstone of its business, which is highly focussed on the customer and on sustainability. The multinational is one of the leaders in its sector in Europe in terms of investment in R&D and innovation, having invested more than €570M in the last three years. With sales approaching €3,000 million, it employs 42,000 professional and has customers in 138 countries.