Mobile Services for Tourism project

Transcription

1 Mobile Services for Tourism project Location-based mobile application and SaaS-service for tourism companies HAAGA-HELIA University of Applied Science Business Information Technology Dr. Ari Alamäki Ratapihantie Helsinki, Finland ari.alamaki [at] haaga-helia.fi Tel

2 Research and Development project Main goal: Help tourism companies to grow by developing mobile services for the use of their customers. Create a reference case for MIDEaaS and utilize Vaadin technologies in creating digital mobile services for guiding and navigation. Target group: End-users are hiking, biking and kayinking tourists (all outdoors activities). The buying customers of the service will be tourism companies whose want to offer mobile guide services for them. Solution: Web-based location and navigation application for smart phones (the current version supports Apple- and Android-devices) and its management systems. Development tasks: The application, its management and SaaS-system built in Haaga-Helia University of Applied Science in Business modeling, R&D models, research papers and commercialization initiatives. Primary technology: Vaadin and Vaadin Touchkit java-framework used in the client side.

3 Research and Development project Finance: DIGILE/Tekes and HAAGA-HELIA Sponsors and advisors: Karttakeskus Oy (commercial digital maps), Natura Viva (field testing facilities and tourism business expertise), Whatamap Oy (mobile tourism business expertise), Maanmittauslaitos (open digital maps) Steering group: Harri Palviainen (Haaga-Helia), Ilkka Lariola (Natura Viva), Sami Masala (Karttakeskus), Kristian Sievers (Tourism, Haaga-Helia) Development team at HaagaHelia: Project management: Ari Alamäki Developers: Kristian Lindroos and Ville Valta (2012), Ville Pesari and Kaj Qvickström (2013) Specialist: Arvo Lipitsäinen (technologies), Kristian Sievers (tourism), Elisa Aunola (tourism) Pilot companies: The first version designed in 2012 for kayaking and canoeing activities in cooperation with Natura Viva - a Helsinki based tourism company. The second phase in 2013, 6-7 new pilot and testing companies (e.g. Riekonlinna Lapland Hotels, Erästely Oy, Pikkulahden palvelut Oy) use the digital service in the real life

4 Motivation: Advantages on focusing to cloud services for tourism SMEs SMEs provides extensive business opportunity but are inefficient to reach via traditional ways of sales and services > mobile & cloud services is an opportunity to overcome this barrier The utilization of ICT in small businesses is in early phase and the offering of ICT-based services is not optimally developed -> stronger utilization of ICT-based solutions could improve efficiency, profitability, customer value and growth -> opportunities in new services, marketing, customer relationship management, sales, business operations and administration Tourism sector is SME heavy and customers are mobile -> HH is extraordinary strong in this segment -> location based services is an opportunity In the markets, the focus is on the foundational ICT over cloud but not so much on innovation of new end user applications and related business opportunities -> good match to HH strengths and strategy

5 Targets of the project Modern and scalable customer applications for SME tourism business Business models and service concepts to reach SMEs Mobile and cloud service development model for companies with limited resources, need to create rapidly and cost efficiently services for their customers Apply Lean StartUp method, Living Lab and customer centric R&D model to ensure excellent user experience Network of companies to form Cloud Services for SMEs Forum Partners and global view point on building service business Increases location based services experience Customer-centric project learning methods and practices Students as business model, service concept, prototype and application developers LivingLab environment for Innovation cource, learn Lean StartUp in practise Observing end user experiences, acting as pilot users Posters used in company pilots

6 HAAGA-HELIA partners and roles in the project - the viewpoint of value-chain end-user Services for consumers / other SME SME customer(s) 1-2 Hotels and 5-7 other SME tourism companies for field piloting Business-Service-App Innovation & Development Service provider Infrastructure Innovation & Dev (MIDEaaS-project) Platform and technology providers Services Research Program - Mobile IDE as a Service Project

7 Service consists from three different technical solutions A) Mobile web application: select routes, navigate, read information, give feedback, etc. Main page structure Route list template Navigation and guide page templates B) App management: Create map points, routes, categories, language versions, etc. C) SaaS-admin: create and manage customer-instances and server components (creates deticated A+B for each tourism company)

8 System-architecture

9 Company s customers = users Company s customers = users The Business Model and Concept: Software as Service Company A Company B Company C Company D Company E SaaS Mobile Guide system Internet / Cloud SaaS-server

10 An end-user delivery model: the link on the web-site of a company Link to the service on the pages of a company Mobiili-opas omatoimimatkailijoille Main page Route page Navigation and guiding pages

11 The Lean Startup-model, Living Lab and other development models are used in the project Learn fast Learn Ideas Build Build fast Data Minimize the total time through the loop Code The first step is figuring out the problem that needs to be solved and then developing a minimum viable product (MVP) to begin the process of learning as quickly as possible. Measure fast Measure Source: Eric Ries (2011) The Lean Startup

12 Thanks!