Digital tourism - An analysis of digital trends in tourism and customer digital mobile behaviour for the Visit Arctic Europe project The future belongs to those who prepare for it today. The Future starts now! Hans Gelter May 2017 1 Foreword Travellers arriving in Northern Scandinavia are interested in experiencing wilderness-type nature and indigenous culture. Hence, the borders between the three countries are not important for international travellers. After years of preparation, tourism actors from the region began a common project to enhance international tourism. Visit Arctic Europe (VAE) project is conducted by the Finnish Lapland Tourist Board, the Northern Norway Tourist Board and the Swedish Lapland Visitor Board and is financed by Interreg Nord for the years 2015–2017. Both the public sector and 90 tourism companies are involved in the project. The aim of the project is to develop Northern Scandinavia into a cross-border, high-quality tourist area that is an internationally competitive and well-known destination. The project focuses on tourism marketing, joint product development, and improvement in accessibility. To ensure the efficiency of the project in line with the established objectives, stakeholders need analyses and updated information on the following four R&D missions: relevant indicators and measurement tools for the success of the VAE project, analysis of future travel trends, digital trends in tourism and customer digital and mobile behaviour, and obstacles to cross-border cooperation in the area where VAE is represented. In this third report, commissioned by the project, researcher from the Luleå university of technology, explore present and predicted future digital travel trends and customer digital mobile behaviour, that can be of relevance for the Visit Arctic Europe tourism industry. As digital information technologies have had a profound impact on tourism industry, and will in the future even more shape the industry and the behaviour and experiences of the traveller, staying update with digital travel trends becomes increasingly important for companies and destinations. However, predicting the future of digital technology development and its influence on people’s behaviours, becomes at the same time increasingly more difficult as the speed of technological evolution increases. We can only be humble in looking into the future, and the horizon of the future comes quickly closer and closer. With this report, we hope to inspire participants in the VAE-project for an interest and curiosity of the digital evolution and its impact on our lifestyle and traveling, as it becomes increasingly important to cope with its quick development to stay on a competitive edge in the global tourism arena. Rauno Posio Hans Gelter Project Leader Associate Professor VAE project Luleå University of technology Tero Rahikainen Project Manager VAE 2 Content: Foreword ..........................................................................................................................................................2 Introduction .....................................................................................................................................................5 Methodology ................................................................................................................................................6 About trend analysis ....................................................................................................................................8 Digital trends in tourism ..................................................................................................................................9 Tourism trends .............................................................................................................................................9 The Experience Economy Trend ........................................................................................................... 11 New technology trends in digital tourism ................................................................................................ 14 e-tourism ............................................................................................................................................... 14 Hardware trends ................................................................................................................................... 14 Software trends .................................................................................................................................... 19 Internet trends ...................................................................................................................................... 21 Smart technology trends....................................................................................................................... 28 Webpage trends .................................................................................................................................... 31 Cloud computing trends ....................................................................................................................... 33 Big data trends ...................................................................................................................................... 34 Customer digital segmentation trends ................................................................................................. 38 The new digital travellers ...................................................................................................................... 42 Gamification trends in tourism ............................................................................................................. 45 Social network trends ........................................................................................................................... 53 Megatrends in digital technology and society .......................................................................................... 57 Digital trends in tourism business management ...................................................................................... 65 Digital trends in travel distribution ........................................................................................................... 68 Digital trends in tourism marketing .......................................................................................................... 78 Customer digital mobile behaviour .............................................................................................................. 86 Pre-consumption digital behaviour .......................................................................................................... 93 Micro-moments in travel ...................................................................................................................... 97 During consumption digital behaviour ..................................................................................................... 99 Post-consumption digital behaviour ....................................................................................................... 100 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................................. 101 Implications for tourism .......................................................................................................................... 101 Summary Conclusions ............................................................................................................................. 102 Appendix 1 Literature ................................................................................................................................. 103 3 Scientific full papers analysed ................................................................................................................. 103 Scientific abstracts analysed ................................................................................................................... 108 White paper analysed ............................................................................................................................. 112 Internet links used in the report ............................................................................................................. 116 Appendix 2 digital applications for tourism ................................................................................................ 119 Example of Gamification in Tourism ....................................................................................................... 119 Booking systems: .................................................................................................................................... 121 Networks ................................................................................................................................................. 125 Social Media ............................................................................................................................................ 125 Analytical tools ........................................................................................................................................ 127 Augmented Reality.................................................................................................................................. 128 Other travel and tourism applications ...................................................................................................