The Mission
The current developments around COVID-19, but also regarding other influencing variables, e.g., in the area of climate change, have demonstrated how sensitively the tourism ecosystem reacts to disruptive influences and events. It is therefore essential for future development to achieve the highest possible level of resilience through a combination of sustainable concepts, as well as digitalization and the use of technology. While new digital solutions might provide new challenges, the same technologies might provide solutions to the challenge of creating sustainable and resilient tourism for the future, which strengthens and supports regional, national, and European strategies. With the practical application of these technologies, Austria and its regions have the potential to position themselves on a national and international level as an innovative and sustainable destination. In addition, via the use of data-driven innovation, the tourism sector can increase resilience concerning the before-mentioned disruptive forces, as these innovations and underlying technologies increase flexibility and adaptive capacity to mitigate and conquer impacts on business models and the overall ecosystem. Equally important is the accompanying and steering development of destination management concepts, as well as concepts for the scaling of project results for a strategic, sustainable development of regions. A particular focus here is on avoiding the disadvantaging of vulnerable or disadvantaged groups using technology.
