The possibilities of using digital applications in the tourism product are great, as such applications for tourism and culture are available for potential investors, from many Greek IT companies in Greece, of which 57 are start-ups.

The One Stop Liaison Office and the Autonomous Directorate for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Support of the Central Macedonia Region inform tourism businesses that digital technology finds infinite solutions and applications for devices or digital tools in tourism.

These include online travel agent communication via chatbots, dedicated digital check-in kiosks, the use of mobile instead of a key, room service and housekeeping bots, and revenue management software that predicts room demand and set the prices. Impressive, after all, are applications such as digital facial recognition for services in airports and hotels or virtual reality experiences for tourist attractions and museums.

“There are too many technological solutions that tourism businesses must now integrate into their operation in order to increase their clientele. This fact becomes even more important due to the great increase in tourism in recent times”, the technical advisor of the One Stop Liaison Office of the Central Macedonia Region, Christina Lagani, points out to APE-MPE. She typically mentions that in search of the Association for the availability of conference rooms in hotels, it was found that there are too many reservations and the interest in conference and urban tourism too great.

“The momentum of the industry is very big and it is escalating even more given that a lot of new hotels are being built in the city. This boom highlights the need for tourism businesses to adapt to the changing conditions of technological development and introduce digital innovations into their environment in order to move ahead of traditional services,” he adds.

The Region of Central Macedonia, for its part, has included the strengthening of digital transformation and innovative entrepreneurship in the program “Central Macedonia 2021-2027”, with the aim of the sustainability and resilience of tourism and strengthening its role in economic development, the social integration and the social innovation of the region.

Those interested can find continuous information on innovation issues on the website of the “One Stop Liaison Office” of the Region of Central Macedonia https://www.ris3rcm.eu/, on the trend research platform www.horizonscanning.gr and on social media.