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7/5/2023 | Jerome Baldowski | 0 Comments

Remote Working Whilst Bikepacking Across Europe – How One Finnish Company Got On Their Bike To Reach The Outdooractive Summer Conference in Germany

Pirjo Räsänen, Outdooractive reseller for the Finnish market, commutes 2100 kilometers by bike from Lithuania to Immenstadt in Germany for Outdooractive Summer Conference

Attending international conferences and events may be common enough, but for the Finland reseller for Outdooractive’s digital tourism platform, the usual transport options did not appeal. Instead, they chose to bikepack their way to the event in southern Bavaria, Germany – working as they traveled.

On May 7, Pirjo Rasonen, the CEO of Ellare Oy, Outdooractive’s sales partner for the Finnish market, set off by bike to arrive in Immenstadt by June 29 for the annual Outdooractive Summer Conference. In numbers the bike trip involved 5 countries, 35 days, 2100 kilometers, 3500 meters of altitude and 15 working days “on the road”.

Pirjo and Ellare Oy has helped Finnish destinations develop nature and activity tourism for over 20 years, and has particular expertise in developing bicycling tourism. The experienced bike packer took the summer conference as an opportunity to combine her passion for biking and exploring Europe, her role as Outdooractive representative in Finland, and her role as a champion of bicycling tourism and took her laptop with her in her bike bags to work from the road.

“The hardest part was finding good Internet on the road. I wrote contracts on the road but also led webinars. You do need a fast and stable Internet for that.”

True to the motto “Eat your own dogfood,” Pirjo planned the entire trip with Outdooractive. Outdooractive is Europe’s largest outdoor activity and tourism digital platform, used by millions of consumers to find their perfect adventure and trusted by thousands of tourism destinations to help them guide their guests and manage their destinations.

When planning the route for her epic trip, Pirjo primarily used premium content from destination and other ‘official’ partners that is available in the Outdooractive platform. “This way, I could always be sure that the trails were good to ride. What the community sees as a ‘good’ cycling route is sometimes also good but already very subjective. As Outdooractive is used by so many destinations, then I was able to trust completely in their ‘official’ content”.

For Pirjo, this cycling trip was a way to relax from her everyday work, to use the app she works for on a daily basis and to draw a conclusion: “The navigation function in the Outdooractive app is really the best thing when you cycle through the most diverse countries in the world. Both in the countryside and in the city.”

Alongside the stunning scenery – “I stayed in what must be the most beautiful campsite along the Danube” – what really stood out for Pirjo during her trip was the kindness and hospitality she received from the locals along her route. “The most difficult part of the trip, I think, was in Poland. There was a section of the route that was affected by recent flooding and had turned into a “mutavelli” (Finnish for mud-pit). It was difficult to cycle, I was falling down, and both my bike and I were completely mired in mud. I managed to get to a backyard and asked the residents for water. Despite the language barrier, they could see what I needed. The resident handed me their garden hose and I was able to clean myself and the bike down in their garden!”

Pirjo added, “Meeting and interacting with local people and other bike travelers was a highlight of the trip.”There is hardly a more sustainable way of traveling than by bike. Values for which Outdooractive stands and which Pirjo represents absolutely through her 35 – day bicycle journey from own muscle power.

Moreover, – since she has not yet had enough – she has just added a few more weeks and right now is cycling back home to Finland. But this return trip is a pure “recreational vacation”- the laptop remains closed.

A map of Pirjo’s epic trip can be viewed online at

https://www.outdooractive.com/en/route/bicycle-touring/cycling-summer-2023-from-lithuania-to-germany/802954249/#dm=1&dmdtab=oax-tab1

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6/5/2023 | Hartmut Wimmer | 0 Comments

Current changes in destination tourism

First things first: don’t let them drive you crazy!
It’s not easy for tourism professionals. Groundbreaking innovations and artificial intelligence are coming from all sides, and experts and consultants are making prophecies about what will even exist in a few years. Therefore, my well-intentioned advice: don’t let yourself go crazy! Below I describe my honest opinion of what I would do if I were in charge of tourism in a destination.

The most important thing is the product
I suggest that we all keep reminding ourselves of what it’s all about at the end of the day. Giving guests a great time that they will never forget and will tell others about. User experience, in other words. That sounds pretty digital, but the digital side is only half the truth. Because besides all the digital information channels and holiday companions, it’s still about the on-site experience, the food & drink, the accommodation, the journey, the excursions and tours, the culture and the weather. These analogue experiences are easier to find, easier to plan and easier to document and share if they have a digital counterpart, the digital twin. Work out your own strengths Learn to say no. Not every destination is great in every discipline. And learn to avoid clichés. clichés. These are exactly the things where the destination is strong, and what a guest will come for, if they come at all. The locals may not be able to hear the same clichés, or look enviously at the beacons where everything is supposedly always where everything is supposedly always better. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. greener. The inhabitants always see their own place too negatively: “There’s nothing going on here. going on”. But that’s not true! I think digitalisation helps to work out one’s own strengths. not always great things, but special things, and that’s what you have to focus on. concentrate on. These strengths also create the brand and thus the reason for the guest to go there. reason why you should go there.

Digitisation
Everything! Everything! As long as you see something when you look out of your window that is not yet in the database, you are not finished. As long as there is something in town that you can’t pay for with a credit card and book online, you’re not finished. As long as there are still closed hiking trails that are not on the online map, you are not finished. As long as you don’t know your guests digitally and what they are doing, you are not finished.

Artificial intelligence
No reason to go crazy. And no reason to wait for anything either. Design a good offer with the service providers and digitise it. Any form of user communication needs perfect data. No matter whether it’s conventional websites and apps, search engines, conversational interfaces (chatbots & co.) or the metaverse. Someone has to digitally record the museum’s opening hours correctly and keep them up to date. And everything else you need for a holiday or a day trip. The systems get the data from the web. Just like search engines have been doing for a long time. The systems will also evaluate according to their own logic what is the best, the most correct and the most up-to-date data. That means: generating data. Good data, all data, and keep it up-to-date.

Open data plays no role
Search engines have always been indifferent to whether the data is open or not. It’s the same with artificial intelligence. In the future, many systems will no longer display data in its original form with source reference and licence, etc., but will process it into an answer depending on the application. The Open Data Hubs are not fundamentally wrong, they are just at least 10 years too late. The platforms and systems are not waiting for this, but are already building their own digital world. What is currently lacking in information is being invented to go with it. The way to avoid this is to make the missing data available as quickly as possible from the official source. At Outdooractive we call this the “Alliance of Officials”, in which we unite the official data from many stakeholders into one official data set – the digital travel guide of the destination. Pure content databases lack the travel guide superstructure to inform a guest comprehensively and the tools to accompany the guest.

European Data Spaces
The EU is taking a promising path with the GAIA-X Data Spaces. It is working on a data ecosystem that is not intended to be a central database and does not require open data. A networked data landscape is being created in which data from many platforms and databases flow together and can be exchanged via standardised data formats and interfaces. For an application, the data as well as the services can then come from different systems. Bookable services or services with other business models can be easily assembled. Licence agreements and business agreements can then be concluded in a simple way (smart contracts), including the use of APIs. At Outdooractive, we have been building exactly such a system for 20 years now, where data from different sources flow together and are organised with standards for rights, technology and business models. That’s why we were chosen by the EU to help develop the structures for the European Tourism Dataspace. The Tourism Technology Alliance (TTA) is already a first visible manifestation of how data will flow in the future. Other partners are just joining the TTA. AI will not replace these models, as it still needs the product and the ability to book and enjoy it.

Sustainability
There was a time when I could no longer hear the word, as it is used in an inflationary manner and often misused for advertising purposes, and usually it has little substantive content. But strictly speaking, Outdooractive’s vision, mission, values, products and services are all geared towards sustainability. Not only am I myself deeply rooted in an alpine cultural landscape where traditionally you don’t do anything that harms the existence of your descendants, but also the entire team and the company Outdooractive cares passionately about sustainability. That’s why Outdooractive is different. The platform is built sustainably in order to give the destinations and service providers back their communication sovereignty in the long term and to digitalise the official – and thus ultimately sustainable – offer in the destinations with the alliance of officials.

Transport
In many research projects, we have been working for years to make transport in destinations more sustainable. These include the awarding of public transport friendly tours, flexible adventure buses, and environmentally friendly travel. We seamlessly integrate public transport into the platform’s applications to offer public transport in the right context for travel to and from the destination.

Certifications
To enable guests to make informed choices about sustainability, we are currently working to ensure that the more than 200 different labels are underpinned by data. Under the umbrella of the supreme institution for sustainability certifications, the GSTC, I am leading a working group for the definition of a uniform data standard for businesses, tour operators and destinations, right now at the GSTC Conference 2023 in Antalya. The aim is to be able to display and filter uniform indicators for different actions for sustainability, such as: Energy consumption, renewable energy, water consumption, waste, emissions, local products and fair employment.

Company, General, Press, Trends & research

2/27/2023 | Jerome Baldowski | 0 Comments

New Product Feature: Snow Depth Map

Looking for safe trips in the snow? Preferably with a lot of snow for a successful ski tour or as little snow as possible for a wintry but safe route on foot? Introducing our latest feature: the snow depth map for the Alpine region.

Snow Depth

If you enjoy snow, the snow depth and snow cover maps provide information about where and how much of it you will currently find on your trip. Using high-resolution satellite images and ground measurements, we show you what to expect when planning your trips.

Snow Depth Map

As a Pro+ user, you will find the ‘Snow Depth’ as a ‘Style’ option for both the Outdooractive map and the OpenStreetMap as part of your “Weather & Climate” information, which is accessed by selecting the ‘Maps and trails’ button at the bottom right of the map panel. You can activate the snow depth map in almost all map views and use it when planning your routes and trips. The information can also be used in combination with the Outdooractive Avalanche Report which you can activate under the ‘Additional layers’ section and run at the same same time. Now you have all the information you need to plan and safely enjoy your trip.

Current Snow Cover

Snow can be a huge source of fun, but it can also bring many dangers, and while some might be on the lookout for the best snow conditions, such as ski tourers, others will prefer to avoid it altogether, like mountain bikers. In order to gain a comprehensive overview of snow conditions, ExoLabs has developed an innovative solution based on satellite data and ground measurements.

Satellite data enables up-to-date mapping of snow cover across an entire mountain range. ExoLabs uses data provided by satellites from both NASA and the ESA that is then converted to create a high temporal and spatial resolution of the snow layer. This map is updated daily and allows is accurate to within 20 meters (with individual image pixels corresponding to an area of 20 x 20 meters).

Note: Currently the snow maps are only available on the web, but not on the App.

As transmission, processing, and analysis of satellite images can take up to 24 hours, our daily snow layer most closely matches the conditions of the previous day, and cloud cover is a critical limitation to the unobstructed view of the satellites. To fill these data gaps, ExoLabs uses information from the most recent cloud-free satellite imagery as well as imagery of the immediate neighborhood to best model the spatial snow distribution. It should be emphasized here that prolonged periods of overcast weather can lead to larger uncertainties in snow cover. The last direct observation may vary in age depending on the geographic area. In very densely forested regions, snow on the ground may be masked by a snow-free canopy.

Current Snow Depth

For many users, the height of the snowpack is of great importance, as it determines the choice of activity and the equipment needed. To model the snow depth in the best possible way, ExoLabs uses the measured snow depths from measuring stations. With the help of geostatistical methods, which take into account local as well as regional differences in snow distribution, the spatial snow distribution can then be modeled. Topographic influences on snow distribution are also taken into account such as a steep slope which can carry a lower snow load than a topographic depression.

The resulting daily snow depth thus takes into account the main influences on snow distribution and represents them at a 20 m areal resolution. When interpreting the data, it is important to understand that these figures represent an average value for the immediate area. There can be a great deal of local variation in the snowpack which cannot be captured in detail at the 20 m resolution. This means that the depth given given uses an approximate average value for this area.

Linked to the University of Zurich, ExoLabs specializes in environmental monitoring. Using satellite data as well as weather and climate models, and modern machine learning techniques, ExoLabs is able to gain a comprehensive insight into the condition of our environment. This valuable information is then presented in a user-friendly format in order to facilitate informed and sustainable decision-making.

The snow height maps were developed and piloted as part of a project supported by ESA Space Solutions.

Company, Press, Products, Trends & research

5/24/2022 | Carina Dietrich | 0 Comments

Outdooractive @ Google I/O

Google I/O is the annual conference hosted by Google in California and is their biggest event of the year for presenting their latest products and software. A global audience of millions is addressed over the two days the event runs.

Google works with a very small number of developers to showcase their latest technologies and Outdooractive has had the huge honor of having been selected as one of them.

Outdooractive among Germany’s most innovative companies 2022

Capital and Statista honors Germany’s most innovative companies for the third time. Among the 470 companies selected in 20 different industry categories, Outdooractive has been listed with a 4 out of 5 star rating in the “Internet, Media & Communication” category

Avoid overcrowded trails with digitized route suggestions

The search for routes and activities in a region nowadays mainly takes place online. This is also confirmed by a study by Bergzeit, which shows that 65% of hikers from the DACH region inform themselves about possible destinations for their excursions on online portals. Here, the best-known routes are usually presented in detail. One of the reasons for this is that tourism regions have so far focused their marketing efforts mainly on highlighting top routes. This now creates the problem that these routes are communicated, commented on and recommended via a wide variety of channels. The logical consequence is that visitors are drawn to already overcrowded routes. Thus, all visitors continue to gather on the same paths and the expected recreational effect is gone. And yet this loop can be solved so easily.

Potential visitors only need to be made aware of other routes in the region. This can be achieved if even unknown routes are adequately described and thus automatically suggested during the online search.

With the Outdooractive Business Account, destinations can create these routes in an uncomplicated and almost self-explanatory way. The more detailed the routes are described and the more information they contain, the higher they will be displayed in the search. Destinations can also integrate these digitized route descriptions on their own websites. Landing pages on the Outdooractive platform for specific activities present the diversity of the region even more clearly to the more than 11 million users (e.g. biking or hiking).

With these digital solutions, destinations can actively guide visitors along new paths and proactively avoid streams of visitors gathering in one place. It is important that DMOs become active and digitally present their regions and the offers available. This is the only way to create qualitative content that reaches potential visitors and provides sufficient information.

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