CULTWAyS

CULtural Tourism WAys through mobile Applications and Services

About

CULTWAyS (CULtural Tourism WAys through mobile Applications and Services) is a two year  project funded by EMMIA (European Mobile and Mobility Industries Alliance) within DG Enterprise and Industry. Trentino Sviluppo is the coordinator of the consortium composed of 4 partners: INNOVA (Italy), ENCADRE (France), bavAIRia (Germany), FTS (Spain).

Project objectives

CULTWAyS aims to highlight the potential of mobile technologies as a key driver of service innovation in mobility industries and in emerging market segments, such as cultural tourism. This approach will enhance the attractiveness, and, as a consequence, economic and social development of remote rural areas which are not typical tourism hotspots but which have valuable cultural and natural heritage.

Accordingly, the key objectives of the project are to:

• demonstrate the potential for mobile technologies in the tourism sector
• develop the potential of the demonstrator for scalability and adaptation to any region in Europe
• address the key societal challenges of preserving and exploiting cultural heritage, addressing environmental impacts of tourism in remote areas as well as safety issues related to travel in remote areas

Activities

The project will develop a mobile application for tourists travelling along the European Cultural Routes of the Via Claudia Augusta, running from northern Italy through to Bavaria in Germany, and the Way of St. James in the north of Spain. The mobile application will provide three kinds of services:

• cultural heritage services, including a digital passport with certification of completed routes and location specific cultural information;
• safety services with location monitoring and travel and weather information and advice; 
• environmental services with information on local green initiatives such as bicycle and electric car hire and eco-accommodation booking.

The challenge will be to develop a system that combines database, location and communication and which is capable of updating and integrating new data from different sources which can be accessed both on- and off-line in order for tourists to avoid roaming charges and to overcome the lack of information due to scarce connectivity. These requirements will guide the technical design and implementation of the service. After a market analysis of existing mobile applications and a study of innovative mobile and location enhanced services, the project will define the data gathering template, design the mobile application requirements, define the interface between the data platform and mobile devices, including interoperability testing.

Actors involved (as representatives of stakeholders on a regional and national level)

A wide range of stakeholders from the participating regions in Italy, Germany and Spain will be involved in the data gathering phase and throughout the project lifetime to ensure a strong and durable impact of the CULTWAyS mobile service application. Main actors involved will be local government administrations, public tourism agencies, professional associations, companies and local organisations.
The project consortium is also supported in the development of the mobile application by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute that will supervise the interoperability testing of the CULTWAyS mobile service.

Expected outcomes and impacts

The project aims to develop a sustainable mobile service application. In order to ensure its continuity and ongoing updating after the end of the project, the consortium will opt for an open system fostering its integration with other, already existing applications and with heterogeneous data sources (institutional and user-based information). 
The services are being designed to meet the needs of both people visiting and travelling through rural and remote areas providing safety and environmental services, and of local stakeholders in order to better promote and grow their businesses. An important impact of the project will be its support for local development by fostering tourism related services in rural areas and providing better access to cultural and natural sites.

Documents regarding to CULTWAyS are available at this link.

• Brochure
• Leaflet
• CULtural Tourism WAys through mobile Applications and Services
• Developing tourism outside of established localities

Cultways partners

	Website	Name of organisation	Region / Country
	www.trentinosviluppo.it	Trentino Sviluppo S.p.A.	ITALY
Short description of key activities	Trentino Sviluppo S.p.A. is an in-house company of the Autonomous Province of Trento. It is a regional development agency having the task of promoting economic activities, territorial development, new entrepreneurs, innovation.
	www.encadre.net	ENCADRE	FRANCE
Short description of key activities	ENCADRE stands for "European Network of Clusters for Satellite Applications Development". It focuses on satellite communication, satellite navigation and earth observation market segments.
	www.innova-eu.net/about-us/company-profile	INNOVA	ITALY
Short description of key activities	INNOVA is a private company specialised in Technology Transfer services and R&D project financing. INNOVA assists industrial and research organisations in the implementation of their innovation strategies for the assessment and exploitation of advanced technologies and the valorisation of R&D results. Its mission is to enhance competitiveness by bridging Research and Industry through Technology Transfer & Exploitation and Venture capital support.
	www.bavairia.net/bavairia-ev/	BavAIRia	GEMRANY
Short description of key activities	The Bavarian Cluster in Space, Aerospace and Satellite Navigation, bavAIRia, mandated by the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology (StMWIVT has been organising since 2004 gnss (satellite navigation) user forums to link various user groups dealing with safety and security matters with the entire gnss value adding chain in bavaria.
	http://fts.org.es	FTS	SPAIN
Short description of key activities	FTS is a nonprofit organization classified as educational, scientific and R & D in the technology sector, whose main goal is to become a strong link between researchers, manufacturers, users and institutions in the ICT field, to make technology a powerful and helpful tool helping people in their personal and professional development regardless of their physical and/or social conditions.